How to Collect Diagnostic Data to Help Troubleshoot Information Store Issues

Your ability to effectively troubleshoot issues that are related to the Exchange 2003 information store depends largely on the type and the amount of diagnostic information that you gather. The Exchange 2003 information store exposes diagnostic information in a variety of places, and you can take advantage of the various types of diagnostic information to help you when you troubleshoot information store issues. This article describes how to collect the various types of diagnostic information that are available to you.

1. Increase diagnostic logging for the area of the information store that you are troubleshooting:
   
   1. Click Start, point to Programs, point to Microsoft Exchange, and then click System Manager.
   2. Expand Organization_Name, expand Servers, and then click Server_Name.
      
      Note Depending on the Exchange System Manager configuration, you may be able to expand the Servers node to navigate to Server_Name. Otherwise, you must expand Administrative Groups, expand Administrative_Group_Name, expand Servers, and then click Server_Name.
   3. Right-click your server, and then click Properties.
   4. Click the Diagnostics Logging tab, and then expand MSExchangeIS.
   5. Under MSExchangeIS there are several subcategories that you can increase diagnostic logging for. Click the specific area that you want to increase diagnostic logging for, and then select the appropriate level of diagnostic logging.
2. If you are gathering performance-related data, enable the extended information store Performance Monitor counters.
   
   WARNING: If you use Registry Editor incorrectly, you may cause serious problems that may require you to reinstall your operating system. Microsoft cannot guarantee that you can solve problems that result from using Registry Editor incorrectly. Use Registry Editor at your own risk.
   
   To enable additional Performance Monitor information store logging, you must edit the registry:
   1. Start Registry Editor (Regedt32.exe).
   2. Locate the Library value under the following key in the registry:
      HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\MSExchangeIS\Performance
   3. On the Edit menu, click String, change the value from c:\exchsrvr\bin\mdbperf.dll to c:\exchsrvr\bin\mdbperfX.dll, and then click OK.
   4. Quit Registry Editor.
   After you modify this registry value, you must restart Performance Monitor to see the new counters. The new counters are located under the MSExchangeIS object in Exchange System Manager.
3. If the situation warrants inspection of the actual code that is currently running in the Store.exe process, you can perform a user-mode dump operation of the entire Store.exe process.