long login times -- need explanation

[graysky]

Any ideas what would cause XP to wait 30-40 esconds after entering the pasword to login? Nothing in my event log to indicate an error. This happens when connected to my home LAN, or when disconnected.

[johnmallan]

Dont double post.

[Phyridean]

Check local group policy and see if anything's been changed from the default.

This can be accomplished by start->run->"gpedit.msc" without quotes.

[graysky]

Dont double post.

Thanks for the tip dude ...do you acutally think I did it intentionally?

[graysky]

Check local group policy and see if anything's been changed from the default.

This can be accomplished by start->run->"gpedit.msc" without quotes.

I'm in there, but I have no way of comparing the values to the defaults unless they are published somewhere or there is a util that will inform me of a change...?

[Phyridean]

everything there should say "not configured"

if it's any value but that, it's been modified, and should be changed back to "not configured"

alternatively, you might do a spybot/adaware/hijackthis scan of your system to see if you have spyware or tons of processes running.

Best of luck,

[differentSky]

Turning on verbose status messages may reveal something. For info on how to do this, have a look here:

http://www.winguides.com/registry/display.php/1136/

I remember that on a laptop I had the HD developed a fault where things started to go very slowly, long boot time, logon and starting apps. A fresh installl of the OS would cure the problem but it would then deteriote within the hour. It was like super fast defragmentation or something. Turned out to be a hardware fault (just something to think about).

[gamehead200]

I'm guessing you have a router, since you have a LAN. Maybe your router or DHCP server is having a hard time assigning an IP address to your computer. Just something to check out!

[graysky]

Thanks for all the replies, all. Still no idea on my end what's going on

[xolox]

I've had the problem aswell. Also, when shutting down, I could see "Closing network connections" for 2 minutes sometimes!

I've googled for it, and most people that had the same problem seemed to relate it to their network.

Windows XP was designed to initiate network-connections on boot, but continue on to loading the desktop before all network connections are actually functioning. Look for it on microsoft.com and you'll probably find some whitepaper about Windows XP's boot-times compared to previous Windows-versions.

Still, even though Windows XP is designed NOT to wait after initiating network-connections, it seems that sometimes it does...

If you use a router at home, try and set the ip-address of your PC manually, see if anything changes. It sure helped for me .

1) Open a command-prompt: Start / Run / cmd.exe

2) Type ipconfig

3) Use the info to manually set it

4) You can set this info in the Properties-window of your network-adapter

If I didn't forget anything, you should be able to set it back to Auto-discover or DHCP or something like that when things don't work. To be on the safe side: Don't blame me if this doesn't work (although I wouldn't know why not)

Hope this can solve the problem!

XoloX

Edit: Now it seems like I ignored gameheads post... I didn't! I just thought I'd explain the process....

[Curv Boll]

I had this problem before when logging on,

As already suggested,

i ran verbose mode,

it displayed the files starting as i went through the login process.

Turned out the file was spyware and removed immediately by spybot.

I'll put money on spyware or infection of some sort.

As already suggested, download spybot if you have not already done so.

Good luck

CB

[graysky]

I'll give it a shot:

-Adware shows nothing

-Spybot shows nothing

[graysky]

Finally manually configed my network, reboot. Same 30-40 second pause only after logging in (after typing passwd). It doesn't matter if I let the logon screen stay there for like 2 or 3 minutes or if I do it right away.

Any more ideas?

[CoffeeFiend]

You just started, don't give up yet

There's many more thing to try. I've seen quite a few reasons for this to happen before.

-Time not syncing properly, which gave SMB related problems (the tiem is used in the kerberos encryption of the SMBs or something like that IIRC)

-Bad drivers or conflicts

-Services sometimes cause it (I've seen printer&file sharing cause this lots)

(...)

Lots more reasons I've encountered, and I'm sure that's just the tip of the iceberg.

I would:

-Have a peek at the event logs

-Try to find what causes it (services, ...) "manually"

-Try bootvis

[graysky]

Problem solved!

It was a network drive! I have a PC that is off most of the time, but I still had the drive mapped. Disconnected it and now it logs in very fast! So is there a setting to change the time it waits for a reply from networked machines? That way the drive can still be mapped, but offline most of the time.