Hi Guys, I'm not sure that Im in the right forum for this but here goes. I have a bit of a problem with a server that Im working with at the moment, in that it takes 45mins to an hour to boot. First, some background information. Basically, I am a computer science student with little to no experience setting up servers but am currently setting up a Windows server for a friend in his home office. I've installed Windows Server 2008 R2 Datacenter x64 and Microsoft Exchange Server 2010 and added the ADDS, files services and DNS Roles and now the computer takes 45minutes to load. I have manually configured the IPv4 settings to use a static IP, and use itself as the primary DNS with the router as the secondary. I have applied all available updates including the service pack and have now installed the WMI hotfix from Microsoft to try and fix the problem. I have changed to the primary DNS to 127.0.0.1 with no luck so I have changed it back to its actual assigned IP. Everything seems to be working correctly when it finally does load but lets just say that I have had a lot of spare time to research the problem while waiting for it to restart several times while it installed Windows updates. I admit that it is not the newest computer in the world and has limited specs but I wouldve thought an AMD Phenom 9450e Quad-core and 4GB RAM with 180GB OS HDD and 1TB Data HDD, would be more than sufficient to run something as simple as a mail server? I have checked the server manager log files and it says that there are errors with the file service role's DFS replication service usually an error of it "has detected inconsistent msDFSR while polling for configuration information" or something very similar. Im not sure what this is or whether it could be affecting the boot times or not. Any help anyone can give would be much appreciated, Jamie

Hello, using the router as DNS server is one reason it may slow down, use ONLY the domain DNS server as preferred and the loopback ip address 127.0.0.1 as secondary DNS. Please post also an unedited ipconfig /all from the server, so we can verify some other settings. Be aware that Exchange on a DC is NOT recommended, even NOT from Microsoft, and should be avoided. It should always run on a member server of the domain instead. A DC should always used for AD/DNS/GC, thats it. In your case with a Datacenter license you should install the Hyper-V role ONLY and then run VMs with one DC and one Exchange server isntead. Keep in mind tha Datacenter edition allows UNLIMITED VMs on the physical machine where it is installed.Best regards Meinolf Weber MVP, MCP, MCTS Microsoft MVP - Directory Services My Blog: http://msmvps.com/blogs/mweber/ Disclaimer: This posting is provided AS IS with no warranties or guarantees and confers no rights.

Hi Jamie, Regarding the DFS error, please check the thread below to see if it is helpful: DFS replication problem http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en-GB/windowsserver2008r2general/thread/d4ccc7fe-2bca-4ed7-9c45-d362765b3e05 Regards KevinTechNet Community Support