Windows 7 - Slow login after cold boot

[nsherin]

Hiya,

 

We've got a batch of Windows 7 machines that when booted from cold, take up to 3 to 4 minutes to reach the desktop after a user logs in.

 

If a different user logs in afterwards (the machine won't have been rebooted), then login times are much shorter. This could be with different users who may not have locally cached profiles on that machine if they have not used them previously.

 

Any help/advice is much appreciated as to how we can speed up boot up times for users after a cold boot. The only redirects set up (using the Windows7 Library Tool) are My Documents. Music, Photos etc, which are redirected to the user's home drives, plus Favourites, which are also stored per user on their home drive.

 

Forgot to add that we use local profiles - i.e. log on as a domain user with Admin rights, customise the profile, log off and then log in with a local user with admin rights. Copy the customised profile and rename it to Default, so that users get presented with a local profile when they log in.

 

Cheers,

Neil

Edited November 24, 2011 by nsherin

[ricki]

Hi

 

Turn on verbose logging on and see where the delay is. Also have a look in the rsop.msc and the event log to see if anything shows up.

How to Enable Microsoft Installer logging and Verbose logging to gather additional troubleshooting Information

 

Richard

[Jose]

its probably because the machine is displaying the login box/screen but has not started the network card and found a dhcp address. Use GPO to tell the machine to wait for network at startup.

[nsherin]

Thanks guys - will look into both of those on Monday all being well and report back my findings.

[ricki]

its probably because the machine is displaying the login box/screen but has not started the network card and found a dhcp address. Use GPO to tell the machine to wait for network at startup.

 

We have had this and had to install a registry key to fix it on the machine. Have a look here for more info Group Policy application fails on a computer that is running Windows 2000, Windows XP Service Pack 1, or Windows XP Service Pack 2 Please note this affects windows 7 as well.

 

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

 

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon]

 

"GpNetworkStartTimeoutPolicyValue"=dword:0000003c

 

Put this in a name.reg file and apply to the machine manually.

 

Richard