Slow logging on 'preparing windows' with mandatory profile

[HCC]

Hi,

 

I am trying to speed up the logon for students on our Windows 7 PCs which currently a little less than a minute. I've turned on the 'highly detailed status messages' and can see that for 40 seconds or so the logon is stuck on 'preparing windows'. If I press ctrl+alt+del at this point then cancel. I can see a black screen with the small 'Preparing your desktop:Windows Desktop Update' box in the top left. I can't find any more info from the logs as to what's being done at this point that takes so long.

 

We use mandatory profiles, and are redirecting folders to a 2008 R2 server with dfs.

 

If I deny apply the group policy I use to set folder redirection and a few other user settings, this preparing stage only takes 5 or so seconds.

 

 

Has anyone else managed to solve a similar logon speed issue, with a similar set up?

[rrrrr]

Whats the size of your mandatory profile?

Do you have any file screens applied to the folder redirection locations?

Any errors in event log? Time outs or unable to access etc

[Liam]

Get rid of stubpath entries in the registry! Just back them up first of course. Makes a massive difference. We login in 4 seconds

[free780]

Usually it's ieunit4.exe which takes ages. Usually if you have IE above the version that shipped with the OS. You can run process monitor remotely to see what is happening. You can also use fiddler in a PC and set the machine proxy on the test pc. You can see if windows is trying to reach any websites that it can't. Sometimes these can be turned off via group policy. Customer improvement etc.

[HCC]

Hi,

 

Thanks for the suggestions,

How do I make procmon run remotely during the logon, do I have to use psexec?

If it is ieunit4.exe, is there any thing that can be done about it, other than to change the drives to SSD?

 

To answer previous questions; the roaming profile is 1.5Mb and there are no file screens on the server.

[free780]

Unless you go to win 10. Some people have played around with registry settings to minimise the ie4unit.exe time.