View detailed startup

[fafster]

Is there any way to view a comprehensive breakdown of a computer's startup and logon?

 

I have a machine that is taking anything up to twenty minutes to get to the login screen, and then another fifteen minutes to get to desktop after logon.

 

I've done the whole cleanup and defrag routine, and there's nothing obvious in the event viewer.

 

I'm pretty much at a loss as to what's going on, and near the point where I'm going to rebuild it.

[bossman]

A free piece of software called HijackThis has the option of logging to file the full start up sequence.

 

Hope you find this of use:

This is the forums for it.

HijackThis.de Support Board - Powered by vBulletin

 

And this is the dowload page for it (note top right hand side direct download):

HijackThis Logfileauswertung

 

Good luck

[sandeep2504]

start, run, msconfig,

 

or you could try autoruns in the sysinternals suite.

[mac_shinobi]

Mike Lin's Home Page

 

I use startup control panel in conjunction with msconfig ( and use the msconfig services tab ) and tick the checkbox at the bottom to only show none MS Services and disable ones I dont require and also use msconfig to stop items loading that dont require to load with windows.

 

Startup control panel is handy as it allows a bit more control over the different registry keys that deal with items that startup and also allows you to delete / remove the items unlike msconfig

[Michael]

As already stated msconfig is a useful tool, but also good old Safe Mode. Only the essential services start, allowing you to see whether the problem is a core Windows one or a driver etc...

 

What version of Windows are you running?

[mac_shinobi]

Is it joined to the domain already

 

what type of network connection is it using ie wired or wireless

 

Have you run memory checks ie chkdsk /r on the hard drive and run the manufacturers hard drive diagnostic utility and also mem86 to make sure RAM is ok?

[rvdmast]

open group policy editor ( either a domain policy or a local policy by typing gpedit.msc) go to

computer configuration/administrative templates/system and enable "verbose vs normal status messages"

 

If verbose logging is not enabled (default), you will still receive normal status messages such as "Applying your personal settings..." or "Applying computer settings..." when you start up, shut down, log on, or log off the computer.

However, if verbose logging is enabled, you will receive additional information, such as "RPCSS is starting" or "Waiting for machine group policies to finish...." and which GPO's it is applying at that moment.

So you can see in real-time what the computer is doing during startup.

 

see How to enable verbose startup, shutdown, logon, and logoff status Messages in the Windows Server 2003 family

[fafster]

Cheers all!

 

Already tried the autoruns tool from sysinternals, but that didn't throw up any difference to a regular machine. Ran a checkdisk before leaving for the day on Friday, so I'll see if that's done anything.