davewm

Sounds like your dc demotion didnt go through properly - you need to do a Metadata cleanup to remove the old server properly from Active Directory. If you dont remove it cleanly you will have gpo niggles until you do. How to remove data in Active Directory after an unsuccessful domain controller demotion - is the MS article on this - make sure you have good backups and a local systemstate backups of all your DC's before doing this stuff. It's also worth checking secure channel for all your domain controller servers as well - do this from each DC server - log on as a domain adminstrator and from the run command try to access the c$ share on every other domcina controller e.g. Log onto server 1 start - run - \\server2\c$ start - run - \\server3\c$ start - run - \\server4\c$ Log onto server 2 start - run - \\server1\c$ start - run - \\server3\c$ start - run - \\server4\c$ etc If you get prompted for username and password at any point the secure channel is broken between the servers and needs to be sorted BEFORE you try to fix the failed dcpromo.

It's all about where the task is being performed - most tasks are being sent to stations to do a job the station picks up the task (sent by MSMQ) so if you cancel the task its also being sent as a cancel task - so if your sending tasks to machines that arent on the network at the moment or have DNS issues then tasks hang about waiting to deliver the various jobs its been asked to do. Package tasks will hang around for 4 days before clearing themselves. Dont worry about the "state" of the tasks list unless you have loads of things hanging around forever.

How long have they been stuck - various tasks can have different timeout values and will then clear themselves - you really shoudlnt have to worry about tasks in there they will not normally cause any problems anyway!

If you enable spanning tree then you should make sure portfast or similar is turned on or you could see odd problems with boot up times or builds. Saying that your symptoms dont suggest a loopback more a routing / ip conflict / or broadcast issue.

If you only boot up one laptop does it still take as long? Applying computer settings means its processing workstation GPO's (mostly) you can turn on USERENV logging (google it - pretty easy) then boot up the station you can then see in verbose mode everything thats happening as the GPO's apply...

This was handled in CC3 by a package called Wallpaper and Logon Bitmaps - this package also works on CC4 - if you ask RM Support they should be able to give you a copy. The package itself allows you to allocate a bunch of different bitmaps and alllocate them to different classes of users.

Sounds like you are missing the driver pack for that type of RM machine

Microsoft Network Monitor - slightly easier to use than wireshark and not the same amount of overhead installing it - I've shifted to using it rather than wireshark. I've seen similar behaviour from a router / core switch / managed wireless controller having the same IP as another device on the network. If you have a CCTV / IPTV system I would strongly suggest that this is put on its own VLAN - your IP phones should be on their own VLAN too.