Monitoring programs report that the Store.exe process consumes additional memory after you install Exchange Server 2003 SP1

After you install Microsoft Exchange Server 2003 Service Pack 1 (SP1), a performance monitoring program that you run may generate an alert or a report to indicate that the Store.exe process uses much more memory than it did before you installed SP1. Typically, the monitoring program reports that the Store.exe process uses more "private bytes" memory than it used before you installed SP1.

This issue occurs because virtual memory is allocated differently in Exchange 2003 SP1 than in the original release version of Exchange 2003.

In the original release version of Exchange 2003, the virtual memory that is allocated to the Jet database cache is allocated as "mapped bytes." However, in Exchange 2003 SP1, the virtual memory that is allocated to the Jet database cache is allocated as "private bytes." Therefore, the memory size that is reported as used by the Store.exe process is dramatically larger in terms of "private bytes." For example, an Exchange computer that has about 4 gigabytes (GB) of RAM might report an increase of about 900 megabytes (MB) of private bytes memory after you install Exchange 2003 SP1.

Note This does not mean that the Store.exe process uses additional memory. The memory is just reported differently in Exchange 2003 SP1.

Typically, this only affects programs that monitor memory private bytes. These programs may generate an alert after you install SP1 if the additional private bytes memory that the Store.exe process uses exceeds a configured threshold.

To resolve this issue, modify your performance monitoring program to increase the private bytes memory threshold for the Store.exe process.

Note The Exchange 2003 Management Pack for Microsoft Operations Manager has been updated to account for this Exchange 2003 SP1 memory allocation change. For information about how to obtain the Exchange 2003 Management Pack for Microsoft Operations Manager, visit the following Microsoft Web site:To modify the monitoring configuration in Microsoft Windows Small Business Server 2003:

1. Click Start, and then click Server Management.
2. Expand Standard Management, and then click Monitoring and Reporting.
3. Click Change Alert Notifications, and then click the Performance Counters tab in the Alert Notifications dialog box that appears.
4. In the Name list, click store.exe private bytes STORE, and then click Edit.
5. In the Change threshold to box, type a new threshold value that is greater than the current value and that does not trigger a Small Business Server 2003 critical alert.
6. Click OK two times.

For additional information about how to configure monitoring and alerts, search for "Monitor your server" in the Help and Support Center in Small Business Server 2003.

For additional information, click the following article number to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base: