Q. A CMD.EXE windows goes idle when multiple CMD.EXE windows are performing extensive I/O in Windows Server 2003 SP1?

If you are running Windows Server 2003 SP1 (Service Pack 1) and you have multiple CMD.EXE windows open performing extensive input or output operations, a CMD.EXE windows may appear to go idle (pause) for a short time, and then continue.

NOTE: Extensive input or output would include copying files or folders, performing a DIR /S, and similar operations.

This behavior occurs because of a problem in Csrss.exe, the user-mode portion of the Win32 subsystem.

Hopefully, this problem behavior will be corrected in SP2.