WMI Query failed. Provider failure.

While trying to use the Share and Storage Manager on a Windows 2008 R2 server, it kept throwing an error:

Volume Query Failed.
WMI Query Failed. Provider failure.

I eventually tracked it down to an issue with TrueCrypt 7.1a. It seems that when TrueCrypt unmounts a drive, it can sometimes leave behind a "ghost" volume, that is invalid and causes the manager to throw the error. You can test if this is the cause on your machine by typing "mountvol.exe" and looking for any errors like "The system cannot find the file specified". This bug/issue was mentioned on the TrueCrypt forums back in 2008, so it's not new.

The only solution I've come up with is to make a tiny TrueCrypt container, and leave it mounted on that drive.

Edit: Included link to Truecrypt forums post about issue.

Revit slow saving to SMB share

So you are using Revit, and notice that saving to a SMB share is horribly slow? Is the SMB share on a Domain Controller? When saving a file to the server do you notice 100% utilization of your server disk?

Well, it turns out that when saving a file, Revit uses a mode called "Write Through". What this means is that the "save" will not finish until the entire file has been written to disk. This bypasses any write cache that Windows might utilize. It's even worse if the share is on a Domain Controller since by default Domain Controllers will disable write caching on the disk.

So, this results in extremely slow writes.
The solution? Well, there isn't one really. You have to move the share off the domain controller. Then ensure the disk on the server you are saving to is fast enough to amount of data being written to it.