Offline Laptop Login Problem

[Guest]

We are curently having problems setting up two new HP nx8220 laptops so that
they can be used offline.

When a user logs on locally when off the network, the login process stalls
on "Loading your personal settings..." for approximately 20 minutes before it
finally completes.

For our existing laptops the user would normally get a message indicating
that the PC can't access the server copy of their roaming profile, and the
login would then proceed with their cached profile.

Why does the login sequence not recognise immediately that it is offline and
skip trying to reach the server for the user's roaming profile?

Is there a registry setting we need to change on the laptop?

Given that we don't have this issue on our other laptops, it seems most
probable that it is related just to these two laptops, so I'm theorising that
it must be something local to each.

The laptops are running WinXP SP2.

Hoping someone can shed some light on this frustrating problem.

Thanks & regards,
Innes (NZ)

 

[Pegasus \(MVP\)]

We are curently having problems setting up two new HP nx8220 laptops so that
they can be used offline.

When a user logs on locally when off the network, the login process stalls
on "Loading your personal settings..." for approximately 20 minutes before it
finally completes.

For our existing laptops the user would normally get a message indicating
that the PC can't access the server copy of their roaming profile, and the
login would then proceed with their cached profile.

Why does the login sequence not recognise immediately that it is offline and
skip trying to reach the server for the user's roaming profile?

Is there a registry setting we need to change on the laptop?

Given that we don't have this issue on our other laptops, it seems most
probable that it is related just to these two laptops, so I'm theorising that
it must be something local to each.

The laptops are running WinXP SP2.

Hoping someone can shed some light on this frustrating problem.

Thanks & regards,
Innes (NZ)

Such long logon times are in most cases the result of inappropriate
DNS settings. This causes the machine to look far and wide when
attempting to locate the validating server.

 

[Guest]

Thanks for the suggestion. What I don't understand is why when there is no
network connectivity does it take so long to decide no server is accessible.
I'll recheck the DNS configuration on the laptops, but I'm fairly certain
they have been set up using our standard process which has always worked in
the past.

Innes (NZ)

 

[Malke]

Thanks for the suggestion. What I don't understand is why when there
is no network connectivity does it take so long to decide no server is
accessible. I'll recheck the DNS configuration on the laptops, but I'm
fairly certain they have been set up using our standard process which
has always worked in the past.
(snippage)

My guess would be that if your DNS is right (workstations looking only
to the server for DNS, the server looking to itself with forwarders set
for Internet access), then perhaps your workstations are looking for a
network resource (ex. printer, mapped drive) that no longer exists and
then continuing their logon after the process times out.

Malke

 

[Guest]

After some more testing I have discovered that this problem is triggered by
logging on to the laptop with any account that is a member of the Domain
Admin group.
I've successfully had the usual message about not being able to find the
server to load the users roaming profile when the only users that have logged
on after rebuilding the PC are vanilla domain users. Once any domain admin,
whether set up for a roaming or local profile logs on to the PC, any
subsequent roaming user that logs on without a network connection will get
the 20 minute "Loading your personal settings ..." delay.

This seems truly bizarre behaviour.

Any suggestions on the likely cause or even how ro go about isolating the
problem.

Manynthanks,
Innes (NZ)