Speed up Windows 7 logons

[CraigM]

Hi everyone

We've just recently redone our main IT lab with new pc's, all running Windows 7 Pro x64. Machines are Core i3's with 4GB ram, all up to date with patches. The server is running Server 2008 SP2, also up to date with patches. We are not using a solid colour as a background, so I think we've avoided that known bug with Windows 7. Machines have NOD32 as AV protection.

The students all belong to the Domain Guests group, so that at logoff their profile is deleted to help keep the pc's clean and as a way of removing any changes the student made during a class. The downside of course is that without having a local profile, it has to be created from scratch every time.

Logon time has been measured between 1:45 and 2:15, which is about normal for a first time Windows 7 logon I think. The question I have is this: is there any way to speed up this first logon procedure a bit? 2 minutes is a long time to wait every time for login.

[3s-gtech]

There are other ways of achieving the change-free/clean PCs setup. (Super) Mandatory profiles is the most obvious, and it will also reduce your login times massively (down to 20 seconds or so), if implemented correctly.