You can initiate garbage collection manually by using a published LDAP control. This doesn’t alter the what objects are collected, nor does it alter how may go into the dumpster. It simply says to do garbage collection right then rather than waiting until the next 12hour interval has passed.
You can use LDP.EXE to do the garbage collection control. Here are the steps:
1. In Ldp.exe, when you click Browse on the Modify menu, leave the Distinguished name box empty.
2. In the Edit Entry Attribute box, type “DoGarbageCollection” (without the quotation marks),
3. In the Values box, type “1” (without the quotation marks).
4. Set the Operation value set to Add and click the Enter button, and then click Run.
It’s possible that the garbage collection you start using the above method could stop in favor of more important tasks like AD replication in the same way as the scheduled garbage collection does. If that happens you can simply repeat the garbage collection steps above until all of the objects are removed.
The process for completing garbage collection has changed in Windows Server 2003 to improve storage conditions in the directory database. Garbage collection removes a maximum of 5,000 objects per pass to avoid indefinitely delaying other directory service tasks. However, the rate at which remaining tombstones are deleted when more than 5,000 tombstones have expired has increased from Windows 2000 Server to Windows Server 2003, as follows:
Windows 2000 Server: If collection stops because of the 5,000-object limit (rather than by running out of objects to collect), the next garbage collection pass is scheduled for half the normal garbage collection interval (by default, every 6 hours instead of 12 hours). Garbage collection continues running at this accelerated pace until all objects have been collected.
Windows Server 2003: Rather than waiting a set time to remove a subsequent set of 5,000 tombstones, a domain controller continues deleting tombstones according to CPU availability. If no other process is using the CPU, garbage collection proceeds. Removing tombstones in this way keeps the database size from increasing inordinately as a result of the inability of garbage collection to fully complete removal of all tombstones during a garbage collection interval.
