Problem:

When accessing files on the server, you find that loading Word, Excel etc. files to be slow.

Solution:

I’m hoping that this is the correct solution. We’ll wait and see.

Solution 1:

Open up Group Policy Editor, and right-click-and-edit Default Domain Controller Policy. Go to Computer Configuration/Policies/Windows Settings/Security Settings/Local Policies/Security Options, and set Domain member: Digitally encrypt or sign secure channel data (always) and Microsoft network server: Digitally sign communications (always) to Disabled.

In theory, gpupdate /force should get the job done, but in practice I had to reboot my Server 2012 instance to make it take effect. Once I’d done so, the difference in speed was extremely obvious – even folder listings were visibly faster, and copying a 9MB file from a share to a client desktop went from taking 20+ seconds to being instantaneous, as it bloody well should be.

Worth noting: this shouldn’t be a problem on a non-domain-controller 2012 server, as you can see from the location of the GPs I had to edit. Also worth noting: these settings aren’t set correctly on Windows Server Essentials 2012 either, despite the fact that WSE is always both a domain controller and a fileserver.

Solution 2:

Disable Receive Side Scale:

Device Manager ==> [Network Card] ==> Advanced properties of the physical network adapter (or virtual network adapter that manages the ” Team “of the physical NICs) ==> select RSS (Receive Side Scaling) and then set it to DISABLED.