This is a listing of a normal user when logged in, using average amount of memory:

UnlockerAssistant.exe 2,796 K (Used when a file is occupird by Windows for no reason)
iexplorer.exe 80,000 K (IE7 - depending on user, this can be 2 or 3 instances with same amount of memory)
rdpclip.exe 3,816 K
ISUSPM.exe 13,980 K
OUTLOOK.EXE 60,000 K
acrotray.exe 8,800 K
explorer.exe 15,620 K
FileMaker Pro.exe 7,160 K
msnmsgr.exe 30,668 K
agent.exe 4,212 K
ctfmon.exe 3,900 K
avgcc.exe 280 K
iisch.exe 1,952 K
EXCELL.EXE 82,300 K
WINWORD.EXE 85,000 K

This is a normal user. For some it is more and for some less. PF Usage is constant between 3.50 GB - 4.30 GB when everyone is logged in.

I installed a SATA2 disk yesterday, added 10 pagefiles 4 GB each on it. This was advised and it should speed up things. But today it seems overall slower instead than having one large pagefile on the system disk and hard drive activity is almost constant instead. It absolutely does not make any sense what so ever. I still can't understand how someone can host more than 5 users comfortably on a high end server since I have major performance issues. I am running out of ideas.

Here is a screen shot of the task manager:
http://www.sotd.se/tsserver.jpg

I'm sorry, but I don't think I can help you with this. As I wrote, I'm not very good at memory management.
But something seems to be wrong with your system, as I have 50 concurrent users happily working on a server which is half as powerful as yours. So the performance problems that tou see are *not* inherent to TS, they are specific for your server. Which means there is hope!

That said, I have a couple of comments:

I believe that creating 10 small page files on a single disk is not a good idea. It means that the write head has to move continuously back and forth over the disk to perform the write operations to these 10 page files. Don't know where you got this advice, but I would create one big pagefile instead. Multiple page files are good when each one of them lies on a separate disk, with a separate disk controller, so that you can have multiple, concurrent read and write operations.

Normal users should *not* be running ISUSPM.EXE.
isuspm.exe is a process that belongs InstallShield from Macrovision. The process automatically checks for the latest updates online for InstallShield. You have to make sure that isuspm.exe only runs for the Administrator, or on the console, or as a service, or whatever the possibilities are.

If I were you, I'd write to a public newsgroup instead, the audience is much bigger there.
You could start with the microsoft.public.windows.terminal_services newsgroup, but you could also check on google or microsoft to find a newsgroup which is more focused on hardware.

Windows Server 2003 does not support a larger page file than 4GB. Therefore I had to split them up and create 10 different ones. If I go down to 4GB in only one file, the systems crawls.
You can read more here if you are interested.
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;237740

How do I make sure that no one is running isuspm.exe? I haven't set anywhere that anyone can use it and the settings are default. How this is possible in this case is beyond me.

I'll take up on your advice on joining a newsgroup. Though never ventured into such a thing before, the idea sounds good.

Thanks for all assistance.

About isuspm.exe: I've no idea, since I've never used it, but there are not so many possibilities. It's either started through a shortcut in the All User - Startup folder, or though an entry in the registry, most likely the Run key. Search the registry for it.

I noticed something yesterday. Under Performance Options and under the Advanced tab, in the memory usage section, Adjust for best performance of: was set to System cache. I changed that to Programs and the system now runs much better. Lots of memory is still used but it now never goes over 4GB. It's ridiculous that this is not set by default when you install Terminal Services. I refuse to believe that this is all I had to do but it sure helped out.

Figured I would pass it on to others.

This *is* the default when you install Terminal Services!
But maybe you installed something else like SQL on it later? That could change the setting again (and that's one of the reasons that a TS should run on a dedicated server).

The only server role that it does have Terminal Services. I don't run any SQL server and the DC and DHCP servers are on dedicated machines. Since this is the main reason why I totally redid the servers, I made sure not to install any other server roles on it other than TS.

The only software I installed are the following:

FileMaker Pro
AVG 7.5
Adobe Acrobat 8
MS Office 2003
Mozilla Suite
WordPerfect 12
MSN Live Messenger
IE 7
WinRAR
Profile Hive Cleanup Service
Tame 5.0


I don't see why any of those would change this setting.

Regardless, it did help out changing it but the memory usage is still extremely high and on the verge on going to far. As long as it doesn't I'll be fine.

The Windows task manager is confusing because it shows private and shared processes. Lots of API's, .Net runtime, and who knows what else are repeated in the list but not actually duplicated in the operating system. I've heard that about 25% of what you see in Task Manager is more realistic of what each user is really consuming.

You can add /PAE to your boot.ini to extend your virtual memory limit. My servers currently run W2k03 Enterprise with 8GB, dual quad core processors, and 32 GB of virtual memory on SAS drives. Each server supports about 100 users at a time and sometimes a little more. Each user runs a full desktop with applications.