Computers "applying computer settings" for a long time on start-up...why?

Question

Might be a bit of a long shot but I'm stumped, along with the ICT Manager for the school I'm working it.

In one of the IT rooms when you switch a computer on it will boot through BIOS fine, but when it gets to "applying computer settings" it can hang for a long time (~15 minutes). If you unplug the computer from the network it starts up fine, gets to the login screen, then you can plug the network cable in and it will work fine.

I don't think it's anything to do with the fact we've been coming close to running out of IP addresses or a problem with our DHCP. Microsoft KB says apply the latest service pack, which we've done, and check a service.

Servers and domian controllers are S2003, Computers and Desktops are XP.

Does anybody have any thoughts on what to try?

EDIT: The logs have shown a problem with folder re-direction for mapping My Documents to the "U" drive.

Solution 1

This happened to us once, all we needed to do was remove the affected machine from the domain, and then add it back.

Solution 2

Its usually a misconfiguratied DNS address in your TCP/IP settings. Check that the PC hasn't been configured to use a static IP address and that that the DNS address is correct.

Solution 3

I've seen this happen a bunch of times and it can be a real pain to diagnose at times. Just today I had the problem with one of the managers' laptops. In this instance the problem was caused by drive mappings to targets that no longer exist. After deleting the offending shortcuts and relevant registry entries the startup time went from 10+ minutes to about 1 minute.

Comments

[Alex]

Check event logs on domain controller as well.

[tony roth]

r u doing client side caching by chance!

[tombull89]

well, I've done that and it starts up as quick as you like and gets to the login box no problem...now it just takes ages to log in >_<

[user1364702]

For you to log in, or everyone? Could be profile issues. Or it could be a network communication issue; test the network pathway to see that there isn't a problem with the line. Check the logs to see if anything suspicious is logged. Test the hard disk to rule out any issues with files, although that probably isn't it...check on the domain controller's logs to see if anything is there. How big are the profiles, if they're roaming?

[tombull89]

I think it may be something to do with drive mapping as shown in the logs, but as it's mapping My Document folders I'm surprised It would have a problem. I'll check.

[Philip]

Windows 2010???

[MrGigu]

Back in my early days of playing with AD when I didn't understand DNS, this was ALWAYS the issue

[tombull89]

I think he means in the year 2010; i.e. he's surpised ms hasn't reduced it. Thanks for th kb article, I'll have a read of that.