Slow initial logon

[sdc]

Hi all

We have an issue with a new suite of Windows 7 machines (the first ones we've deployed in the school). The first time a user logs on, it takes about 1 minute 30 seconds (or sometimes a bit longer); subsequent logons for that user are around 10 seconds. Our mandatory profile is only a few MB, so can't really see that being an issue (network speeds are excellent). Group policies appear be be applying without any issues.

Any suggestions? We've already fixed the wallpaper problem without improving the logon times at all.
Thanks in advance!

[Hightower]

First thing I would check is event viewer. See what's going on the first logon. Really sounds like a profile thing - maybe trying to access something it doesn't have permissions to do?

[jsnetman]

We had similar issues here, one thing I did do is delete the stubpath entries in the machine registry via machine startupscript. This improved first logon time for us. I would test it on one machine first fire up the registry and search for stubpath and delete the sub keys and reboot.

[Hightower]

Could it also be something with Win7/Vista profiles are different to those in XP and the first time each user logs on it had to do the additional setting up, taking a little while longer. Have you tried updating your default/mandatory profile to include the new way Win7 does things in the profile?

[ICT_GUY]

Double check for missing share paths as well.

[sdc]

Thanks for these responses - looking into them now.

[TomStanley]

Did you manage to fix your problem? Make sure the 'Disable all items on desktop' policy is set to Not Configured - it can cause a few problems.

[sdc]

We're still bashing away at it! Too many things going on at once! Thanks for this suggestion; we'll give it a shot.

[nephilim]

We had this ourselves in our WIN7 suite. If everything is redirected, the login time should be cut down to around 5 seconds. If it has to load from a mandatory profile, it will take from 10 seconds - 180 seconds (as has been my experience).

[sdc]

Thanks; sadly I mistakenly stated that we're using mandatory profiles - we're not. Students'/staff profiles are created from the default profile upon first logon. Everything is redirected: start menu, desktop, My Docs, etc.

[elsiegee40]

So how big are these roaming profiles?

They can grow alarmingly. Have you got something like JAM Software - TreeSize Free on your server to take a look?

[sdc]

No roaming profiles - they're not written back to the server. Just retained on local PCs, which are occasionally wiped.

[CraigM]

I've noticed this myself with our 3 Win 7 pc's in the staff room. First unique logon by any person had a slow logon, but after that it was darn quick. I've just told staff it happens the first time only, they are happy enough.

[prad]

sounds like windows7 sync centre to me... this will sync the users' home folder by default unless turned off by a policy (different to the standard offline files policy used for xp)