Logon lag... blue screen

[gshaw]

Got a bit of a weird problem at the mo, noticed it the other day...

Our machines autologon with a machine account, usually boot from cold > desktop takes around 2 minutes with network mandatory profile. Booted up the room yesterday to do some updates and noticed that the load "felt" slower so timed it... now takes 3 minutes.

Windows loads quickly enough, screen goes black then the light blue background comes up (pre logon screen). We see "Windows is starting up" briefly then just the plain blue background for about 30 seconds, some HD activity during this time. Seems like it takes way too long then we get "Applying computer settings" with more HD activity then the usual startup scripts and applying personal settings.

What's going on in that first blank blue section? Reimaged one of the machines in the room and it's back at normal speed so something seems to be different, not quite sure what yet though...

[Hacksawbob]

Are these conected to a domain? If they are part of active directory, DNS settings are a good place to start here's an interesting link on diagnoses especially the "conversation " between clients and servers at the bottom

Slow boot at "Applying Computer Settings" - Active Directory

heres a previous EG post on it Logon Problems - "Applying Computer Settings"

I wonder if reimaging is reseting the GUID of the machine?

[Michael]

Sometimes after a holiday (like half-term) machines can be slower. Maybe finalising Windows Updates or downloading Anti Virus identity files?

Have you checked the Event log for errors (of course, before re-imaging)

[gshaw]

Was sat in one of the rooms before and suddenly wondered if it could be Services starting up causing the HDD activity and slowdowns. Thought of the one service that always slows things down... Sophos!

Removed AV from one machine, let it reboot to settle then raced it against another with AV still on - there's the lag

Updated all machines to newest version now (were using the stable SAV before to avoid the large updates coming through every other day) so will see how it goes.

Thanks for the links, will research those as well to give everything a check over