Slow group policy

[molesm]

Hi,
we have
21 machine group polcy and 24 user group policy objects applying to users, with this a pentium D dual core 3GHz with 1 gb of Ram and a 256mb pci-e graphics card takes about 3:20 to load from the time that you turn on the PC, 1:10 to start up then 2:02 to log on.
On other workstations which have 1.3Ghz celron processor 512mb RAM and 8mb shared graphics take 8:16 to load 1:18 to start up and 5:46 to log on it also takes about 5-8 seconds to enter log on details each time.also when laptops are off site they can sometime take (apprantley) 15mins to load.
I am intrested to know how many GPO other people have applying and start up times, as well as if you have long loading time offsite

Molesm

[Geoff]

See this KB article on optimizing Group Policy performance.

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/315418

[ChrisH]

That seems like a lot of GPOs to me. I have maybe 5 at most. There is the main curriculum machine policy and the main user policy. Theses start of restrictive and are eased off or changed lower down for extra rights for teachers etc. For software I use security filtering on machine groups.

[srochford]

Look at the gptime utility from http://www.gpoguy.com/Tools.htm

This will tell you how long GPOs are taking to apply - I suspect that they're not the problem (although they could be :-))

Try disabling windows updates - there's a know issue with the service which grabs all cpu time and hence slows down logons (http://support.microsoft.com/?id=916089) (You can disable it through group policy - set the service to disabled)

Do you have a virus scanner doing odd things? Again, disable it on a machine and see if it helps. (McAfee used to be a nightmare for this - it always seemed to want to do a full machine scan when you logged on, no matter what settings we had) Check to make sure that the scanner isn't scanning network drives - the server probably also scans files there so you're double scanning and just slowing things down.

Are you using mandatory profiles (or roaming profiles)? If so, how big? Clean them out!!

Steve

[john]

Could it be a DNS issue? I have had it before where GPs take an age to apply when DNS is a bit flakey as its struggling to get to the server etc but it is running and getting bits of data, just not the full picture.

[Ric_]

DNS is usually to blame for slowness but you do seem to have a hell of a lot of GPOs (which IIRC isn't advisable).

Does a machine start more quickly if the GPOs are not applied to it?