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Windows 2003 Scalable Networking pack and its possible effects on Exchange

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This is not a new issue but in the latest times I've used as a best practice in Exchange 2K3 / 2K7 and ISA Servers, so here's the keys to disable.

 

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\Tcpip\Parameters]

"EnableTCPA"=dword:00000000
"EnableRSS"=dword:00000000

"EnableTCPChimney"=dword:00000000

 

Possible possible symptom's of this keys enable without the right drivers:

You cannot create a Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP) connection to the server.

You cannot connect to shares on the server from a computer on the local area network.

You cannot connect to Microsoft Exchange Server from a computer that is running Microsoft Outlook.

You can only connect to Web sites that are hosted on the server or on the Internet by using a secure sockets layer (SSL) connection. In this scenario, you cannot connect to a Web site that does not use SSL encryption.

You experience slow network performance.

You cannot create an outgoing FTP connection from the server.

You experience intermittent RPC communications failures.

Some Outlook clients may be unable to connect to Exchange.

You cannot run the Configure E-mail and Internet Connection Wizard successfully.

Microsoft Internet Security and Acceleration (ISA) Server blocks RPC communications.

You cannot browse Internet Information Services (IIS) Virtual Directories.

and also

  • 32 MAPI sessions exceeded (9646 errors) causing the inability for Outlook clients to connect to the Information Store. This can occur more frequently with VPN connected clients and we have also seen scenarios where Exchange 2007 is affected with Windows 2003 SP2 installed as well.
  • Non-paged pool memory leaks caused by having the Chimney feature enabled. Sometimes you can't even start the IIS services when Non-paged pool gets below 20MB.
  • The Inability to logon to Outlook Web Services or even IIS for that matter, either locally or remotely.
  • Networking throughput is decreased when these features are turned on. This is the opposite of what the Networking Pack is supposed to do.
  • Cluster ISAlive checks fail randomly
  • TCP Connections are reset when RSS is enabled.
  • TCP port exhaustion