Minimising student logon times

[maniac]

Hi nephilim

 

Whats your current setup to acheive this? Our loging times are awfull over the wireless. We dont use roaming profiles, just folder redirection. All students desktops are redirected to one location and is read only, the same with the start menu and Application data is local.

Desktops are ok with login time but laptops can take upto 15mins!!!! The problem most of the time is the startmenu not showing up for ages!

 

Thanks

 

2 Things that might improve things:

 

Re-direct your start menu and desktop to local folders instead of a network location - that sorts out loads of problems with things like that.

Optimise your group policies, make sure un-necessary policies are not set as the more policies that are set, the slower the login time.

 

Mike.

[techie08]

2 Things that might improve things:

 

Re-direct your start menu and desktop to local folders instead of a network location - that sorts out loads of problems with things like that.

Optimise your group policies, make sure un-necessary policies are not set as the more policies that are set, the slower the login time.

 

Mike.

 

How would you update the shortcuts for the start menu if they were redirected locally?

[maniac]

How would you update the shortcuts for the start menu if they were redirected locally?

 

Using some VBS magic which checks a central location at startup to see if there's any icons that need copying over, if there are it copies them from the central store to the local folder. I've been doing it this way for years and it works brilliantly. You can get really clever with the coding as well so the script builds a customised icon set for the machine using "if xyz.exe exists then copy this icon" type statements meaning the minute you roll out new software to a set of workstations, the icon is automatically copied by the script - no manual intervention needed.

[techie08]

Can i have a copy of your script? I may have to test this ASAP as 15 mins to log on is a bit ridiculus!!!

 

Thanks Maniac

[maniac]

Can i have a copy of your script? I may have to test this ASAP as 15 mins to log on is a bit ridiculus!!!

 

Thanks Maniac

 

You can, but you'll have to give me a few minutes to seperate it out of our massive startup script as it's one giant script that does a ton of different things. Check back shortly . . .

[techie08]

You can, but you'll have to give me a few minutes to seperate it out of our massive startup script as it's one giant script that does a ton of different things. Check back shortly . . .

 

Your a star!! Thanks Maniac

[Brpilot99]

In addition to all of the above make sure that in your IP settings for the network adaptors both fixed and wireless, the DNS setting points to your local DNS server. This makes a big difference in not only login times but any communication with your servers

[maniac]

OK I've sperated this out.

 

'SPIRES ACADEMY STUDENT WORKSTATION STARTUP SCRIPT
'Wirtten by M.Redman July 2009
'Based on Origenal Script written for NBC in 2007 by M.Redman
'Version 2.20

'This script works by doing the following:
'1. Checks to see if the version number specified exists, if it does then it bypasses the whole icon section of the script. If it doesn't or is different it goes to copy icons as below;
'2. Checks to see if icongroups folder exists, if it doesn't it creates it
'3. The entire old icon cache is deleted ready for a fresh copy if it exists
'4. Main set of icons are copied from a central storage location
'5. Other Icon groups are copied from individual storage locations based on OUs the machines are in
'6. Creates the version number file so the script knows the latest set of icons exists on the local machine. 
'7. Additional icons are copied on an individual basis by looking for certain program files on the local machine. 

'YOU WILL NEED TO USE XCACLS TO ALTER THE PERMISSIONS ON THE LOCAL FOLDER TO STOP STUDENTS SAVING TO IT
'OR PRE-CREATE THE FOLDER WITH THE CORRECT PERMISSIONS SET, AND ALTER THE SCRIPT ACCORDINGLY. 

Const OverWriteFiles = True
Set objFSO = CreateObject("Scripting.FileSystemObject")
Set WshShell = WScript.CreateObject("WScript.Shell")


'ICON DELIVERY
'Set Version number
dim strfile

' #####################
' # To Copy new icons #
' # Increment the     # 
' # value Below.      #
' #####################

' ### MODIFY BLOW THIS LINE ONLY ###

strfile="v1.40"

' ### DO NOT MODIFY BELOW THIS LINE ###


'Check to see if version file exists if it does, whole icon section is bypassed.
If Not objFSO.FileExists("c:\ICONGROUPS\STUDENTS\" & strfile) then

'Check to see is Icon folders exist, if not create folder
If Not objFSO.FolderExists("c:\ICONGROUPS") then
objFSO.CreateFolder("c:\ICONGROUPS")
end if

'Delete old icon cache if it exists
If objFSO.FolderExists("c:\ICONGROUPS\STUDENTS") then
objFSO.DeleteFolder("C:\ICONGROUPS\STUDENTS"),TRUE
end if

'Copy global icons from server
objFSO.CopyFolder "\\spires\netlogon\ICON BANK\MAIN" , "C:\ICONGROUPS\STUDENTS" , OverWriteFiles

'Setup for reading machine OU and copy extra ocons according to OU membership. 
Set objWshNetwork = CreateObject("WScript.Network")
Set objAdsSystemInfo = CreateObject("adsysteminfo")
Set objComputerName = GetObject("LDAP://" & objAdsSystemInfo.ComputerName)
Set objOU = GetObject(objComputerName.Parent)
strOU = replace(objOU.Name,"OU=","")

'For each Case statement, a seperate folder can exist
Select Case strOU

Case "Room 22"
objFSO.CopyFolder "\\spires\netlogon\ICON BANK\Room22" , "C:\icongroups\students" , OverWriteFiles

Case "Room 25"
objFSO.CopyFolder "\\spires\netlogon\ICON BANK\MATHS" , "C:\icongroups\students" , OverWriteFiles

End Select

'Create version number txt file
Set objFile = objFSO.CreateTextFile("c:\ICONGROUPS\STUDENTS\" & strFile)

END IF

'Copy Icons for specific programs that may be installed anywhere

'PINNACLE
If objFSO.FileExists("C:\pinnacle\Program\Programs\Studio.exe") then
If Not objFSO.FOLDERExists("C:\ICONGROUPS\STUDENTS\STARTMENU\PROGRAMS\Pinnacle") then
objFSO.CopyFolder "\\spires\netlogon\ICON BANK\Pinnacle" , "C:\icongroups\students" , OverWriteFiles
end if
end if

'FIREFOX
If objFSO.FileExists("c:\Program Files\Mozilla Firefox\firefox.exe") then
If Not objFSO.FILEExists("C:\ICONGROUPS\STUDENTS\STARTMENU\PROGRAMS\Mozilla Firefox.lnk") then
objFSO.CopyFolder "\\spires\netlogon\ICON BANK\Firefox" , "C:\icongroups\students" , OverWriteFiles
end if
end if

 

It's very important that you use this in conjunction with XCACLS to keep a check on the folder permissions so the students can't save to the desktop or startmenu. Our machines run XCACLS every startup to check the folder permissions are correct. This process only take a few seconds to run.

 

Because the whole script is written to check for certain files first, it only copies data over the network if the local machine actually needs it otherwise it skips over the sections not needed in a fraction of a second.

 

I've trimmed this down lots - you have a couple of examples of each type of icon distribution I use in this script.

 

Mike.

Edited July 12, 2010 by maniac
Missed a bit of code off!

[techie08]

Thanks Maniac. Ill give that a go!!!!

would this script go in the machine startup or user login?

Edited July 15, 2010 by techie08

[p858snake]

Also if all your students use the same mandatory profile, you can cache that locally and freeze it as well if you desired.

[techie08]

Ive managed to get the script working but as a User login script or startup script it just says permision denied line 54 char 1. Is this because i dont have the correct permission on the c: drive? Im not using xcacls

[techie08]

Ive now sorted it. Works like a charm!!

[maniac]

Ive now sorted it. Works like a charm!!

 

Apologies, didn't notice your reply until today! Glad you got it working in the end.

 

Mike.

[boogster]

Hi there

 

was just looking through some posts and came across your one, I am having some issues with login times over wireless LAN (see below link I have posted)

http://www.edugeek.net/forums/windows/60928-wireless-logins.html

 

Was wondering if you could have a look and give me a few pointers/help

 

Thanks

[techie08]

Appolgies for resurecting this tread again, but i have now tried to implement the same script for a windows 7 test computer but it fails to copy the icons across. It creates the startmenu folder in the root of the C: but doens't copy any of the icon over. XP seems to be fine.

 

The script is used in the machine startup not user log on. Would it point to a permissions problem on the c drive of the windows 7 machine?

 

Thanks

[maniac]

I've never used it on windows 7 so I'm not really in a position to help you much, sorry!

 

The basic functions of the script are fairly simple, so as a guess I would say it's a permissions problem with the location you are copying the icons from, as oppose to a permissions problem on the local machine, because it has sucessfully created the folders so you know it is able to write to the C:\

[themightymrp]

Do you have UAC enabled? Having that switched on causes problems when copying into the root of a drive (or at least it does with me). It comes up with the 'You must click continue' prompt. You could try writing to a folder that always exists by default, that should allow it through.

[techie08]

Do you have UAC enabled? Having that switched on causes problems when copying into the root of a drive (or at least it does with me). It comes up with the 'You must click continue' prompt. You could try writing to a folder that always exists by default, that should allow it through.

 

Yes i turned it off aswell. I have tried copying them to an existing folder yet.

[techie08]

Tried doing and existing folder but thats still the same.

[techie08]

Managed to get it working. I edited the script to copy the shortcuts from the file server.

[themightymrp]

And that worked whereas from the NETLOGON it didn't? Strange but hey, glad you got it working

[techie08]

And that worked whereas from the NETLOGON it didn't? Strange but hey, glad you got it working

 

Yeah, very strange!