Network Problem

[Allen]

Hi guys,

I'm just looking for a little advice, I don't expect people to do my job for me or hold my hand through anything, but I've had a little look around the net and can't find any decent sites offering help.

Basically, I work for an IT company now that supports other companies. One of our clients has a very simple setup, a server running Server 2003, 5-6 computers running XP Pro and a 24 port POE switch (the POE ports are used for the VOIP phone system). Everything is brand new except the server which is an old Dell, however it's pretty fast still and only used for a small amount of PC's.

The problem is, when users are logging into their PC's, it takes between 5-20 minutes to log in, the screen gets stuck on "loading your personal settings" during this period. I've had a look at the server and computers network settings and all looks OK, the only think I can see is that they are using roaming profiles and some of them have profiles that are multiple GB's in size. I'm assuming that this could be the main cause, however, due to hard drive limitations I cannot currently move the documents to another location to test this.

Any other ideas, maybe things I could look at?

(I hope this doesn't take the mickey, I don't want other people doing my job for me just a helpful pointer in the right direction.)

Thanks in advance.

[Jay]

This is a DNS problem

Make sure that their PCs have the correct DNS servers I would expect that may be the domain controller in this case

make sure they can do a nslookup

[Blastuk]

The files would be cached on the local computer after logging in so try logging off immediately and then log the same user back on again.. if it's still slow then it's more than likely not a profile size problem..

or you could just try logging in with a new account with no files on it to test that.

[i4000]

There's a multitude of problems that could be causing this, the obvious profile size question, network misconfigurations, dodgy group policies, crap logon scripts etc.

Without a bit more information it's difficult to offer advice other than stabs in the dark. My first port of call would be the Windows event logs (System & Application), what's being logged during the logon period? If there's nothing obvious then I would suggest enabling UserEnv logging (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/221833). Enable this and then perform a logon with one of your slow accounts, once you are logged in go to Start-Run and enter %Systemroot%\Debug\UserMode\Userenv.log in the run box, this will open up a log file which should give you all the info you need. The log file will be full of rubbish that is largely irrelevant, try searching for "Error" or "Failed" etc.

If you're not getting anywhere, post an excerpt of the log here.

[Allen]

Thanks guys, I will try a couple of the above ideas and see if I can get to the bottom of it.