XP login S-L-O-W loading personal settings

[martinjsteven]

We have an NT4 domain, 50 x Windows 2000 clients and 3 x Windows XP clients. Logging in to the NT4 (sp6a) PDC or BDC (needed for legacy software unfortunately).

The Windows 2000 clients login to the network with no problems at all. The Windows XP clients however (this is ANY XP client, regardless of service pack, mapped drives etc) sticks for around 10 minutes with the message "Loading your personal settings" after logging in.

This is the wierd part... the login only completes when the screen saver cuts in ! As soon as this happens the desktop appears and voila, we are in.

I am not using roaming profiles, have no group policies, no mapped drives, no other software running and not a lot of patience left.

Have tried moving DNS, WINS, DHCP to a Windows 2000 member server on the same domain, makes no difference. Only other software which may have any relevance is WinProxy 4, but not using the DHCP or DNS options of that.

HOWEVER... if i try logging into a different domain on the same LAN (using the same DHCP server), it's fine, loads the personal settings in under 2 seconds and logs in straight away, which obviously means its a problem with the domain.

Putting the PDC into an lmhosts file on the client has no effect.

PLEASE SOMEONE HELP ME !!

Thanks

Martin

 

[audiopimp]

hmm sounds starnge. I've noticed some of my xp machines taking a little longer than my 2000 pro ones at times but not as long as you say...
The problem seemed to have disappeared when I did one or a combinationn of the following.
- installed the SP1 update for xp and security patches
- Recreated the user ( copied user folder ect... )
- Refreshed the network protocols (Uninstall, reinstall)

One of these or a combo did it for our medium sized lan,
If possible try assighning it a static IP within your DHCP limits and see if its faster , perhaps its an issue of assighning it an IP

Hope this helps

 

[martinjsteven]

Have tried all the above at some stage over the past few days, none make any difference at all unfortunately. Have even wiped the hard disk and re-installed XP from scratch to make sure it's nothing on the client. Does the same pre-SP1, post-SP1, with no hot-fixes, with all hot-fixes.

Have re-created the user on the local machine and on the network, still takes the same amount of time.

Have been onto Microsoft (XP in their support terms stands for eXtremely Pathetic), the only thing they seem to be able to do is bounce me back and forward between XP and NT support.

This is getting extremely frustrating now ! Thanks for your suggestions anyway !

Martin

 

[Marcs41]

Check the Event log for problems during login, it may reveal alot.
Feel free to post the relevant ones.