Slow logon to Windows 2000 Server with XP Pro W/S

[Edward Walsh]

I have a network setup for a client with Windows 2000
Server and four workstations with XP Pro. When logging
onto the network it is very slow 'applying personal
settings' and I believe it is because the office is using
a satellite for internet and to access the web I have had
to point the DNS to their servers for certain websites to
work properly. Please advise me if this is a correct
diagnostic and any suggestions on how to improve the long
logon speed.

 

[Rob Elder, MVP-Networking]

Probably the correct diagnostic but not the correct way to configure DNS.
AD requires that you point to the server hosting your AD namespace.

On your server, delete the root zone if you have one. You'll see it as a
"." in the forward lookup zone. One the sever properties, configure
forwarders and point to your ISPs DNS server. Reconfigure you clients to
point to your own DNS.

 

[Edward Walsh]

Rob:

Thank you for confirming that this setup was the cause.
I setup another network for another client and it works
fine....great speed for logging in and no problem with
internet access (they use DSL). It was that the
satellite company has problems with my client going to
certain sites they need to access and so in order to do
this they had me point the server to their DNS. They even
had me set up in Internet Explorer a 'proxy server' to
access needed web sites as their own gateways refused to
let my client through to their needed sites so that is
why having to point to their ip address for DNS, etc.

After what you said, I plan on Monday to bring in a
router and keep all internal settings pointing inward and
only the gateway pointing out and let the router handle
the 'go between' the satellite and the satellite modem.
I plan as an example to use lets say...10.1.1.1 as the
servers 'fixed' ip address and using the satellite
assigned ip as the gateway and using 10.1.1.5 as the DNS.
I had no problem with my other client but again they were
using DSL and could reach anysite no problem anyway. I
hope that this works in speeding up the logon and still
allow them access to their needed training websites.

If you can add anything further I would appreciate it.

Thanks,

Edward F Walsh