Slow logons - Applying Folder Redirection

[FN-GM]

I made all the users home areas in a sub fodler called documents and let desktop.ini do its stuff.

[bigal06]

hmm.. that's how we used to have it but thought the filescreen was a fix until you pointed out the problem with slow logins. Looks like we will have to go back to that method if i can't find something else.

btw - login times now from over a minute to 20 seconds.

thanks

[gshaw]

To add further to this, I've managed to get logon down to 20-25 seconds and it all came down to tweaking policies.

Navigate to User Config > Policies > Admin Templates > System > Folder Redirection - Do not automatically make redirected folders available offline - Not Configured.

If you enable this on either Windows 7 Gold or Windows 7 SP1, you're guaranteed slow logons. It's a known bug and it'll be fixed in Windows 7 SP2.

If you enable verbose status messages Computer Config > Policies > Admin Templates > System - Verbose vs normal status messages - Enabled you notice a big difference when applying Folder Redirection policies/settings, taking about 2 seconds instead of many more like before.

The only thing I am confused about still is how some of you are managing 5 second logons with Folder Redirection. Without the policy Computer Config > Policies > Admin Templates > System > Logon - Always wait for the network at computer startup and logon - Enabled Folder Redirection fails and the user is forced to logoff and then back on again.

On the policy itself it also mentions:



Any suggestions would be welcomed!

@Michael

Maybe it's Monday morning syndrome but just need to confirm what you're saying above... let me know if I've understood these correctly...

1) need to make sure the GPO for Offline stuff is left unconfigured. If this is the case will disabling Offline files generally be sufficient to stop them trying to sync (not a fan of Offline Files generally so want it off)
2) keep Verbose messages on (I have them on at the moment as I wanted to see how quickly policies were applying and it shows the user something is actually happening instead of "please wait")
3) make sure Always Wait for Network is on (we have that on at the moment)

On our systems Preparing Desktop appears for about 10-20 seconds, already got WinMail disabled but would like to make it even quicker if possible!

Thanks

[Michael]

No problem at all!

1. You cannot switch Offline Files off via GPO in Windows 7. If you look closely, the GPOs mostly apply to Windows XP. The only method is to disable the Offline Files service which you can do via GPO in Windows 7.
2. Verbose messages are optional but recommended yes.
3. Yes, leave this policy enabled. 20 seconds is fairly typical and acceptable.

Realistically, I think the only way it can be improved or made quicker is for Microsoft to properly fix problems with GPP. There are some post SP2 fixes already available, however all fixes will come in Windows 7 SP2 sometime in 2013.