Preparing Windows Screen - Log On Times

[chrisprice]

Hello

 

Hope you're all well. Just wondering what everyone's thoughts are on logon times, specifically the preparing windows screen.

 

What have you all done in your establishments to speed up log on times? "First" logons can be upwards of 2 minutes which we really want to tackle this summer.

 

We don't use roaming profiles and clear profiles from machines every 20 days, otherwise the drives begin to fill up. Close to 3500 students and 400 staff. I remember reading somewhere that it can be due to the tiles on the start menu. Any advice?

 

 

EDIT: Decent spec'ed machines. 8gb RAM+ and at least 4 cores, 8 threads. Looking at upgrading to 16gb machines. Network backbone is 10gb back to core and 1gb links to machines. Servers are way overpowered!!

Thanks in advance

 

Chris

Edited August 8, 2023 by chrisprice

[DalekSec]

What spec are the machines ? and what network speeds do they get? Could be a bottleneck somewhere

[Olliedawg]

Worth checking GPO's as well. I had a printer which was offline trying to map via GPO, causing issues in one room.

[chrisprice]

Hi

 

Thanks for your reply. I've just updated my post. Decent spec, and network backbone is 10gb back to core, with 1gb to each client.

 

Cheers

[chrisprice]

Thanks for the reply Ollie. Yes so GPO is another whole kettle of fish that we're trying to tackle too. Printer mapping especially offline ones is a nightmare. But we seem to have the GPO load down to acceptable times at the moment - the logon just sticks at preparing windows for ageeeeees.

[DalekSec]

Worth checking GPO's as well. I had a printer which was offline trying to map via GPO, causing issues in one room.

 

This would be next thing to check then, check there isn't a GPO getting stuck.

[FN-GM]

Do you block the creation of the desktop.ini file? This can slow login times considerably.

[chrisprice]

Do you block the creation of the desktop.ini file? This can slow login times considerably.

We do prevent users writing to their desktop, as we redirect the desktop to a standardised set of folders on NETLOGON

 

Potential solution here - we'll investigate. Thanks!

[FN-GM]

We do prevent users writing to their desktop, as we redirect the desktop to a standardised set of folders on NETLOGON

 

Potential solution here - we'll investigate. Thanks!

 

It is also created in the documents folder. Do you block it there as well?

[TechMonkey]

You may already have done this but there is a GPO setting to give more informative messages at login. So rather than a generic message (which I think is preparing Windows) it says which bit it is looking at. This will give a very good idea of what needs looking at.

 

I think it is Computer Configuration > Administrative Templates > System> DISPLAY HIGHLY DETAILED MESSAGES

[chrisprice]

It is also created in the documents folder. Do you block it there as well?

We do actually...maybe pointing us in the right direction here.

 

Cheers for your assistance!

[chrisprice]

You may already have done this but there is a GPO setting to give more informative messages at login. So rather than a generic message (which I think is preparing Windows) it says which bit it is looking at. This will give a very good idea of what needs looking at.

 

I think it is Computer Configuration > Administrative Templates > System> DISPLAY HIGHLY DETAILED MESSAGES

 

Yes that's correct we already have this turned on, so we know which GPO's we need to shoot but then it's the part where it's actually building the profile "preparing Windows" after all the GPOs that it seems to sit for a minute or two. Thanks

[Asgard]

Most of it will be Windows 10 and their UWP apps (Cortana, Calculator, etc) which run in the users context - we block a fair few running on startup with applocker.

[chrisprice]

Most of it will be Windows 10 and their UWP apps (Cortana, Calculator, etc) which run in the users context - we block a fair few running on startup with applocker.

Yes this is what I have read but no idea how to block them. Is there a standard way of doing so? Does it make a big difference?

 

Cheers

[Chris_Cook]

I'm presuming you are on SSDs? Are these big enough, or failing?

 

Its possible to clear out the profiles too frequently, if students re-use the same PCs every other week for example.

 

Are the logins slow all the time, or just during lesson changeover periods?

[Olliedawg]

If using local profiles, it does take a minute or so on first login to generate the profile. As Chris said, if clearing out too frequently, the same students will be constantly generating "new" user profiles upon login.

 

I have mine set to clear out after 35 days of inactivity via GPO & only on student machines. This seems ot be enough for me, most machines are running 256GB SSD's.

[mjhardisty]

Don't think I've ever found a way to speed up the first login time problem where Windows builds the user's local profile, AppX's, registry, etc. I don't think it's a problem if staff appreciate that, and subsequent logins on the same machine are acceptable.

 

I agree with @Chris_Cook to investigate why profiles are growing that machines are filling and profiles need deleting. Implement a policy to delete inactive profiles, but with 120-240gb drives there should be enough space for a lot of users depending on your app deployments, use of OneDrive Files-on-Demand, etc.