Ive 4 identical HP DL 380 G5 Servers with Windows 2003 R2 Std. The 4 machines have the same Windows driver version and motherboard BIOS version. 2 have no problem. 2 have problems after Nov/Dec 2011 Windows Update! After running for a few days from power-up, the 2 problem servers will hang at gray screen during restart. After clicking for restart, - The Event Log service will stop normally so there is no more error log can be seen! - The IP ping to the server can still work. The mouse pointer in Windows can still be moved. - The Windows shutdown gray screen can be shown. - [Ctrl-Alt-Del] has stopped to function. Then the system just freezes at that status. I can only cold-boot the system! After power-up again, I can do the Windows restart / shutdown normally! But after a few day of running, the above symptom repeats! The symptom happened since I installed the Windows Update in Dec 2011. It didnt happen before that! Anyone can give a hint on how to diagnose it?

Uninstall the KB first and re-test. It could be anything, antivirus update that goes wrong in the same period. A memory leak from a third party application on that server, etc... On 2003 installing user hive cleanup service can't hurt. (http://www.microsoft.com/download/en/details.aspx?id=6676) A memtest can't hurt too, as the bug happen after some time. Except that, the only thing you can test is to manually kill all unnecessary process before shutting down the server, to be sure it's not a faulty application that crash the shutdown processMCP | MCTS 70-236: Exchange Server 2007, Configuring

Hi, In order to troubleshoot the server hang issue, you can first preform a clean boot on the problematic system. Steps: ==================== 1. Click Start->Run->type msconfig and press Enter 2. Click Services tab and select Hide All Microsoft Services and Disable All third party Services 3. Click Startup tab and Disable All startup items 4. Click OK and choose Restart 5. After reboot, check whether the problem still occurs If the server hang on issue still continues in clean boot mode, for the further troubleshooting, you may check in the Task Manager to see which process takes the memory resources. Meanwhile, you can also use reliability and performance Monitor to track down what cause the performance issue. Windows Reliability and Performance Monitor http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc755081(WS.10).aspx Windows Performance Monitor http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc749249.aspx Best Regards, Aiden Aiden Cao TechNet Community Support

Uninstall the KB first and re-test. It could be anything, antivirus update that goes wrong in the same period. A memory leak from a third party application on that server, etc... On 2003 installing user hive cleanup service can't hurt. (http://www.microsoft.com/download/en/details.aspx?id=6676) A memtest can't hurt too, as the bug happen after some time. Except that, the only thing you can test is to manually kill all unnecessary process before shutting down the server, to be sure it's not a faulty application that crash the shutdown process MCP | MCTS 70-236: Exchange Server 2007, Configuring Already try uninstall the Windows Patches. Same result! Windows restart / shotdown is normal after power-up. Gray screen hang will only happens in the restart / shutdown after the Windows is up and running for sometime already. If it happens everytime, it is easier to fix!

Windows restart / shotdown is normal after power-up. Gray screen hang will only happens in the restart / shutdown after the Windows is up and running for sometime already.

Kill all service by hand before restarting the server when you test (antivirus, backup software, all unnecessary service, etc..) Something is hanging the shutdown process. I had a symptom like that for 2 TS server, and it was the spooler that was in error for me. It wasn't able to stop at all. Applied some patch and it turned ok after.MCP | MCTS 70-236: Exchange Server 2007, Configuring

Any progress on your issue? I am suffering the same, on 3 servers HP DL380 G5 with 2003 server (R1) SP2, the curious fact is that they belong to different customers (2 for one, and 1 for other) and are on separate datacenters but failed the same week. I could not reboot again to assure of what is happening, because I am waiting for authorization, and also I am looking for some utility that allows me to log what is crashing on the shutdown. I am suspecting that the stuck is on the shutdown because the server never lost ping response. on hp forums I found an old thread that could also help. here is it http://h30499.www3.hp.com/t5/ProLiant-Servers-ML-DL-SL/HP-DL380-G5-do-not-shutdown-it-restarts/m-p/4061902#M68875 Thanks a lot pd - is there some way to completely inhibit printing and print driver issues on 2003 server? as you may know, everytime on starts an rdp session, lots of errors are produced for trying to present the printers of the client on the remote server.

jumax, Not the best forum to ask that (try there http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/winserverprint/threads) Honestly I think you have 3 choices; 1 - Install the driver in advance in your TS, so the mapping will occur correctly. 2 - Only import the default printer (to restrict the list of printer) 3 - Import no printer at all, and install local printer to your TS and restrict the use. You can make a simple script to set the default printer to the user. I did one in VB in the past that look AD group's membership to set a default's printer. (On a 30 sec. login I fall to a 10 sec. login that way) MCP | MCTS 70-236: Exchange Server 2007, Configuring --- Murphy's law quotation of the day: "Debugging is at least twice as hard as writing the program in the first place. So if your code is as clever as you can possibly make it, then by definition you're not smart enough to debug it."

Thank you all. Finally I solved the problem. The Symentec Enterprise Antivirus Engine v. 10 makes the trouble. When I uninstalled the Antivirus, everything returned to normal. Now I've upgraded the Antivirus Engine to v. 12. Everything is still fine now.