Slow logons - Applying Folder Redirection

[FN-GM]

Hi,

 

I am getting slow logons on Server 2008 R2 RDS and Windows 7 Clients. The machines seem to take ages to apply folder redirection settings. Its taking a minute or so to get logged on. I am having the same problem as this. I am not using the group policy "Do not automatically make redirected folders available offline" so this hotfix doesnt apply to me. If i apply this hotfix it totally breaks redirection.

 

Dos anyone have any thoughts please?

 

Thanks

[Michael]

Around 90 seconds appears to be the norm for Windows 7 and roaming profiles. It can also depend on the spec of the machine, wireless speed and especially the amount of RAM can influence logon speed to a point.

 

There do appear to be quite a number of bugs with Windows 7 SP1, rather than security problems. Hopefully Microsoft will address all these in SP2 next year.

[mthomas08]

I had a number of things go wrong here while doing our server upgrades.

 

Both GPO and Account setting for the profile must match.

Went through all GPO settings (yes all) for students to make sure everything was good.

Local profiles cleaned

Profile folder permissions setup correctly - technet has a list of the correct settings.

Windows 7 apparently has issues with Mandatory profiles we encountered this when changing our Forest/Domain to 2008 R2. My google advice told me Roaming profiles is the way to go so students have their own located on the server.

 

Strangely enough I have had a lot of issues, when its working I can log all ICT rooms 150 PCs all on within about 5 seconds. I am going to do a mass clear out in February because I still believe there are issues and the only solution I have left is because there are still old profiles on some PCs. Only way to do a proper clean is delete all profiles - from the server/desktops for a complete fresh go.

 

I hope any of this helps.

[bossman]

Around 90 seconds appears to be the norm for Windows 7 and roaming profiles.

 

If my endusers had to wait that long to log on they would have my guts for garters!!!

 

New roaming profile 25 - 35 seconds, cached profile 5 - 9 seconds

 

Staff and Students expectations are very high here

[Michael]

If my endusers had to wait that long to log on they would have my guts for garters!!!

 

New roaming profile 25 - 35 seconds, cached profile 5 - 9 seconds

 

Staff and Students expectations are very high here

 

It really depends what GPOs you've setup. I include Folder Redirection, printer mappings, network drive mappings and other various generic GPO settings.

[bossman]

It really depends what GPOs you've setup. I include Folder Redirection, printer mappings, network drive mappings and other various generic GPO settings.

 

Me too

[webman]

Me too

 

But we also use CC4. If you believed half the RM complainers on here, our logons would be even longer than what they are

[Michael]

So for those of you who have super fast logons, what GPOs exactly have you applied?

 

- Folder Redirection Yes/No

- Printer Mappings Yes/No

- Network drive Mappings Yes/No

- Other various generic GPO settings Yes/No

- Roaming Profile or Local Profile?

[FN-GM]

The servers are a good spec and the machines are i5 with 4 gig ram. The network is gigabit. With RDS the servers are in the same server room as the rest. Its just really annoying it takes so long for that to apply. We have local profile and mandatory. It shouldnt take that long to apply those settings.

 

Zak

[dhoward_westexetc]

The servers are a good spec and the machines are i5 with 4 gig ram. The network is gigabit. With RDS the servers are in the same server room as the rest. Its just really annoying it takes so long for that to apply. We have local profile and mandatory. It shouldnt take that long to apply those settings.

 

Zak

 

Do you happen to have the setting 'Move the contents of Documents to the new location set' on your folder redirection settings in Group Policy?

 

I took it off because I was sometimes getting chronically slow logons on applying folder redirection, particularly when moving large documents areas. This just changes the pointer, and on new users with blank home directories it creates nice blank folders.

Edited December 13, 2011 by dhoward_westexetc
added full GPO setting

[FN-GM]

Do you happen to have the setting 'Move the contents of Documents to the new location set' on your folder redirection settings in Group Policy?

 

I took it off because I was sometimes getting chronically slow logons on applying folder redirection, particularly when moving large documents areas. This just changes the pointer, and on new users with blank home directories it creates nice blank folders.

 

Nope that is not selected.

 

Thanks

[mcrompton01]

Hi,

 

We had a similar problem that plagued us for half a term, it would take up to 40minutes for a user to logon (random RDS Servers, times and logged on users).The issue would be appear to be different for each user: Apply Folder Redirection, Applying Printers, Applying User Settings it was very confusing. Finally we found this:

 

2008R2 - GPClient is taking a long time to handle the logon request (Up to 1 hour)

 

You experience a long domain logon time in Windows 7 or in Windows Server 2008 R2 after you deploy Group Policy preferences to the computer

 

the above hotfix has been applied for almost 3 weeks now and the problem has not resurfaced.

 

Mark @ Kingsmead

[Michael]

Thanks I'll try this myself when I get back in January. Yet another 7 SP2 hotfix. There does appear to be a lot of bugs with 7 and 7 SP1 with regards to logging on to a domain I've noticed.

[FN-GM]

Hi,

 

We had a similar problem that plagued us for half a term, it would take up to 40minutes for a user to logon (random RDS Servers, times and logged on users).The issue would be appear to be different for each user: Apply Folder Redirection, Applying Printers, Applying User Settings it was very confusing. Finally we found this:

 

2008R2 - GPClient is taking a long time to handle the logon request (Up to 1 hour)

 

You experience a long domain logon time in Windows 7 or in Windows Server 2008 R2 after you deploy Group Policy preferences to the computer

 

the above hotfix has been applied for almost 3 weeks now and the problem has not resurfaced.

 

Mark @ Kingsmead

 

Hi,

 

Just been trying this hotfix and it doesnt seem to have fixed the issue.

 

Anyone got any other ideas please?

 

Thanks

[mcrompton01]

Hi FN-GM,

 

I'm afraid I don't have anymore ideas or hotfixes could try as it solved it for us so we stopped looking.

 

Out of interest what folder redirection settings have you got applied (Documents/Desktop/Startmenu) and where do they point (Network Drive/Local Drive)?

 

One more question when redirecting their homedrive (My Documents) does the server you point them at have "File Screening Management" in place? We did find we were blocking a certain file type and that cause a problem.

 

That's all I can think of sorry!

 

Mark

[Arthur]

Anyone got any other ideas please?

Two more hotfixes which might be worth a try?

 

KB981830 - Roaming profile users experience slow logons on Windows 7 or Windows Server 2008 R2 client computers

KB2617858 - Unexpectedly slow startup or logon process in Windows Server 2008 R2 or in Windows 7

[FN-GM]

Out of interest what folder redirection settings have you got applied (Documents/Desktop/Startmenu) and where do they point (Network Drive/Local Drive)

 

Documents - to home area

Desktop - location on C drive

Start menu - location on c drive

Music and pictures - they follow the documents redirection.

 

One more question when redirecting their homedrive (My Documents) does the server you point them at have "File Screening Management" in place? We did find we were blocking a certain file type and that cause a problem.

 

I do yes, I will try suspending it and see what happens.

 

Thanks Arthur, I will give that shot

 

Thanks to you both!

[psydii]

I saw a couple of new hotfixes relating to slow logons and offline file interaction on this blog List of Offline Files (CSC) related hotfixes for post Service Pack 1 for Windows 7 SP1. - The troubleshooters and problem solvers... - Site Home - TechNet Blogs a few months ago but they were pulled. The implication being that they introduced regression bugs and they would be re-released q1 2012.

 

Other than the reference to links not working, I can find no trace of evidence to support the above. Got to love the internet.

 

I would love to see what settings and spec of machines Bossman is running to get consitantly <2 minute logons.

[Davit2005]

So for those of you who have super fast logons, what GPOs exactly have you applied?

 

- Folder Redirection Yes/No

- Printer Mappings Yes/No

- Network drive Mappings Yes/No

- Other various generic GPO settings Yes/No

- Roaming Profile or Local Profile?

 

6 folder redirections - Start Menu, Pictures, Favaourites, My Documents, Desktop, Application Data,

Deployed Printers with Prefrences for default Printers

Network Drives done by Logon Scripts

Lots of fancy GPO's, doing reg keys, Copying/creating folders etc.

Local Profiles

 

 

Based on our ICT machines which have the most software loaded. a Windows 7 32bit On a Dual Core 3.2 E5800 Intel PC, 4GB Ram (3GB Usable)

40 Seconds to Logon Screen, about 10 to 15 to working desktop if user logged on to machine previously. Was a lot worse initially (2.30 to logon screen) but seems to of improved even though doing a lot more in the policies now.

[FN-GM]

ah ha! found it what is causing it.

 

I had blocked desktop.ini files in home areas so that it doesnt show them as "documents when you view them in a list. I will find some other way for the desktop.ini to not do this and then remove the restriction. Now the logon times are under 20 seconds when i have of the restriction.

 

Thanks for all the input

[Michael]

6 folder redirections - Start Menu, Pictures, Favaourites, My Documents, Desktop, Application Data,

Deployed Printers with Prefrences for default Printers

Network Drives done by Logon Scripts

Lots of fancy GPO's, doing reg keys, Copying/creating folders etc.

Local Profiles

 

I redirect all folders apart from AppData.

 

I deploy printers using GPO, not GPP.

 

Network drives mapped using GPP.

 

I have some reg fixes, again deployed using GPP.

 

I use roaming profiles.

[FN-GM]

Now i have a fast logon i can also answer

 

- Folder Redirection Yes/No - Yep Documents, Desktop, Start menu, Pictures & Music

- Printer Mappings Yes/No - Yes by GPO

- Network drive Mappings Yes/No - Yes by GPP

- Other various generic GPO settings Yes/No - highly lockdown for student

- Roaming Profile or Local Profile? - Local for staff - Mandatory for students.

[DrCheese]

I had blocked desktop.ini files in home areas so that it doesnt show them as "documents when you view them in a list. I will find some other way for the desktop.ini to not do this and then remove the restriction. Now the logon times are under 20 seconds when i have of the restriction.

Ya I've warned against that multiple times on this forum when it's brought up as a solution to folders renaming themselves "My Docs" It was one of the first things I tried when attempting to solve that issue but it absolutely murdered logon times, which are already slow on some of our older machines.

 

Initial logon time is the one thing I hope that MS focus on in Windows 8. I've never been able to get our P4 era machines to under 20/30 seconds which is annoying.

[Michael]

To add further to this, I've managed to get logon down to 20-25 seconds and it all came down to tweaking policies.

 

Navigate to User Config > Policies > Admin Templates > System > Folder Redirection - Do not automatically make redirected folders available offline - Not Configured.

 

If you enable this on either Windows 7 Gold or Windows 7 SP1, you're guaranteed slow logons. It's a known bug and it'll be fixed in Windows 7 SP2.

 

If you enable verbose status messages Computer Config > Policies > Admin Templates > System - Verbose vs normal status messages - Enabled you notice a big difference when applying Folder Redirection policies/settings, taking about 2 seconds instead of many more like before.

 

The only thing I am confused about still is how some of you are managing 5 second logons with Folder Redirection. Without the policy Computer Config > Policies > Admin Templates > System > Logon - Always wait for the network at computer startup and logon - Enabled Folder Redirection fails and the user is forced to logoff and then back on again.

 

On the policy itself it also mentions:

 

Notes:

If you want to guarantee the application of Folder Redirection, Software Installation, or roaming user profile settings in just one logon, enable this policy setting to ensure that Windows waits for the network to be available before applying policy.

If Folder Redirection policy will apply during the next logon, security policies will be applied asynchronously during the next update cycle, if network connectivity is available.

 

Any suggestions would be welcomed!

[Badzeye]

I have been having trouble with Windows 7 logon and logoff times with our laptops connected to the wireless. I understand they will take much longer than a desktop to logon because of using roaming profiles over the wireless. However they have been hanging on please wait for the user profiles service on log on or log off sometimes to the point that they just have to be restarted and attempt to log in again with them.

 

I have enabled verbose mode to show me what GPOs this could be affecting but this seems to happen before any of the settings are applied as once it waits for a few minutes at waiting for the user profiles service the rest of the GPO settings can be seen to apply fairly swiftly and the rest of the log on process goes though without any bother.

 

I would be thankfull for any thoughts on what could be happening as it has been bugging me for a while. Thanks.