How bloody long should an XP domain logon take?

[Mercutio]

Today I noticed that my WinXP lab machines need something very close to four minutes to go from login prompt to clean desktop.. and the only startup programs worth notice are Office Fast Start and NAV8. Switched 100Mbit LAN, XP2100s.

Turned off all group policy processing on a client and on the server (i.e. AD isn't even sending out default settings). That took a whopping 20 seconds off login processing.

I thought: "Hm. That's odd. I'll try it at home where I have a non-sucking network infrastructure (Intel Pro100s to Catalyst 5005 over cat5e) and faster client hardware (XP2200)."

Almost the same thing. A little bit more than 3 minutes to log in after the normal XP boot process. DHCP? Nope. Static IP didn't appreciably change login time.

WTF?

 

[blakerwry]

I noticed an extremely long login problem with a box at work..... I think it was a fresh install of XP home... but it might have been an upgrade... basically, a similar problem to what you're seeing. No startup programs... Static IP.... every thing seems fine but you still get a 2 min + wait from logon to desktop....

I honestly don't know the fix, but I assume it is something that can be solved with a reformat and a careful reinstallation.

I didn't do the install or setup myself so i can't really help you out... all I know is that it was an XP home install on a celeron ~466 with 320MB RAM and I think it was an intel 810 mobo.

 

[Fushigi]

My notebook will seemingly stall out periodically when booting here at home. At the office it's pretty much always fine. I don't log in to the domain directly (instead I just attach to resources as needed). At home, it's connecting to the 802.11 LAN but that shouldn't slow down the boot process. Static IP; no domain.

Where it stalls is after the login screen, my wallpaper appears with no icons. It'll just sit for a bit before deciding to finish loading. No rhyme or reason to it that I can see. My best guess is that it's timing out somewhere but I couldn't tell you where. Since it's my home usage, I haven't worried about it very much.

Dell Latitude P4M 1.6GHz, 1GB RAM.

- Fushigi

 

[blakerwry]

hmm.. maybe you could run the bootvis tool.... it has the capability to give you a timeline of your bootup (including stuff like driver/startup programs loading) it might give you some insights as to what is causing the problem.

And, of course, you could always visit www.blkviper.com and go through the winXP serivces config and disable the unneeded items.


http://www.blkviper.com/WinXP/servicecfg.htm
http://www.blkviper.com/WinXP/service411.htm

 

[Mercutio]

I ran bootvis before I cloned the machines, so I don't think that's it. Boot to login prompt time is maybe 35 seconds on my XP2200, and that's the part that bootvis can control, if I read the docs right.

 

[Buck]

Are you running WindowsXP Home or Professional?

 

[blakerwry]

I ran bootvis before I cloned the machines, so I don't think that's it. Boot to login prompt time is maybe 35 seconds on my XP2200, and that's the part that bootvis can control, if I read the docs right.

when you do a trace, do a "Next Boot + Driver Delays"... when you open the trace's log (.bin format) it will show you a section for both driver delays and process creates. This is what I was refering to....

On both of these sections you will see a vertical line that represents "when the boot was done" according to bootvis. On the timeline, after this vertical line you will see a few driver delays and all of your process creates.

http://anime-jennie.com/hdd/bootvis.gif

 

[time]

This might help.

 

[blakerwry]

good find, Time.

 

[CityK]

Came across this MS page

CK

 

[honold]

my first guess would be that it's a dns issue

and as a longshot, the second issue could actually be related to the cat5k. about 4 years ago i was working on a network that was switching with one, and a parameter in the nt4 workstation registry had to get added in order to manually delay the logon process. if that entry wasn't present, the systems would timeout (the default was something like 60s) and give the nt4 standard 'couldn't contact pdc, using cached copy, blah blah'. i never investigated that issue, it was just considered a 'quirk' there and only began when they inserted the cat.

make sure the xp clients aren't using nameservers that can't resolve the dc.

 

[Mercutio]

I know my DNS setup is good, since all our DNS stuff is forwarded through the DC anyway.
Most of the local infrastructure has been in place for years, but Win2000 clients (the same machines!) take less time to log in, and those machines have roaming profiles configured.

 

[honold]

i don't mean your dns server setup, i mean the dns server that the clients are pointing to - the one that was assigned to them via dhcp, etc

sorry if this sounds pedantic, your last msg wasn't clear on whether or not you were referring to the server or the client resolver configs

 

[Mercutio]

My DC is the DNS server that my clients get from DHCP. It'd be a piss-poor DNS server if it didn't have a record for itself, wouldn't it?

 

[honold]

perhaps you have a "." (root) zone in your dns server?

an easy way to figure out if this is a name resolution issue would be to use the lmhosts.sam file and its #DOM option

 

[blakerwry]

Honold, I'm not questioning your judgement because you have more knowledge of networking and domain controllers than I do.. but if it works in 2k... but not in XP.. how is it a DNS issue if both OS's are set to use the same gateway/DHCP server?

I guess if Merc wanted(if he hasnt tried already), he could easily specify all settings.

 

[honold]

understood

i've learned not to make any assumptions about configurations, heh.

i've also learned most domain logon delays are the result of dns problems.

the win2k boxes could have static ips, the win2k boxes could have dynamic ips with static dns assignment, the win2k boxes could have hosts/lmhosts edits, etc.

the lmhosts.sam thing will show clearly whether or not this is a name resolution issue, so that will be the end of that line of reasoning.

 

[Mercutio]

I'll admit that I haven't looked at my DNS setup since about 20 minutes after I set up my 2nd DC (er, the PC on my desk, running 2000 Server precisely so I can take the big guy down if I have to), but I can't see that one being a problem, either. I'll check anyway.

But blakerwry is right: If 2000 works, XP should, too.

At home I have a caching-only DNS server and (almost) all static assignments, and XP domain login STILL takes a long time.

I tried time's suggestion, too, but it didn't help either.

 

[honold]

for lmhosts you'll want to do something like this:

1.1.1.1 dc #PRE #DOM:domain

the pre is important because otherwise it will try to resolve via dns first.

after you make the edit, go to your network config in the wins section and import the lmhosts.sam file (system32\drivers\etc\lmhosts.sam).

it may want the name dc.internal.lan instead of dc, try the other if the first doesn't work. don't do both on one line (doesn't work unix style) and don't do both together on separate lines.

 

[honold]

here's another dumb question: is there anything of value in the event viewer?

what node type does ipconfig /all say you have? netbios over tcpip enabled?

 

[honold]

...aaand another one

are the 2k and xp oses both sharing the same name on the same box?

have you manually disabled ddns updates?

 

[honold]

another note before i'm off to bed

it would be prudent to actually disable dns by setting it to manual assignment and specify no servers. that way you KNOW the result you're getting is from lmhosts, not dns.

 

[Pradeep]

Are you running WindowsXP Home or Professional?

I don't think XP Home can be a member of a domain.

 

[Buck]

Are you running WindowsXP Home or Professional?

I don't think XP Home can be a member of a domain.

That is why I was asking. However, XP Home will work with a Domain, just use a Workgroup name with the same name as the Domain.

 

[Mercutio]

Yes, but you lose all the goodness that comes from having clients authenticate on your domain - management with Active Directory, needing PITA additional user security configuration on your clients.

XP Home is a communist plot. EVERY OTHER Microsoft OS since DOS 3 can authenticate on a domain.

 

[honold]

did you give up on resolution of this issue mercutio?

 

[Mercutio]

Nope. But since I'm not so dedicated as to spend my weekend trying to fix it.

 

[Pradeep]

Actually speaking of MS, yeserday I got an email saying that there was an outstanding request for association with my company in their records. When I logged in there was no outstanding requests to be seen. Anyone else get the same email?

 

[honold]

nope

 

[smak]

I can't remember the exact date, but I got the same message from Microsoft about that time.

 

[Mercutio]

My happy little Adaptec card seems to have helped my situation immensely. I shaved about a minute off login times on my clients by having that 2nd port...

 

[double bit CRC error]

crazy

 

[zx]

I had a problem where it would take about 4 minutes for the computer to show the logon screen in my home network. I think it was due to the fact that I had to ghost-restore the domain controller.

The solution was to get the computer out of the domain (make sure it was unregistered from the DC), reboot, then put it back in.

 

[The JoJo]

Installed 2 new Toshiba laptops for a company a couple of weeks ago. WinXP professional, and several minutes boot time .

I remembered this thread, and am going to try the MS Fix today.