Slow Startup When Away From Domain After GP Software Install

[Ben]

Hi,

We have a problem on a few of our laptops when they are out of the
office, away from the domain. In the office startup time for our
laptops (Dell Latitudes, D630s, D530s & D830s, 2Gb RAM, Win XP SP3) is
around 2mins 30seconds, not to bad. However, when out of the office,
such as working from home, or on a client site these laptops can take
up to 10 minutes to boot. Additionally, when off the network, once
logged on, applications hang constantly, especially when starting
them, i.e. clicking the start button after logging on causes a 2
minutes hang, opening IE is the same etc. I have noticed that if I
switch off the wi-fi connection during startup or when an app has hung
the laptop suddenly jumps into life.

To me, this sounds like a problem with DNS, so I enabled userenv
logging, and rebooted a laptop off the network. The below is a snip
from the log file.

USERENV(61c.684) 19:44:12:890 GetUserNameAndDomain Failed to
impersonate user
USERENV(61c.684) 19:44:12:906 GetUserDNSDomainName: Domain name is NT
Authority. No DNS domain name available.
USERENV(61c.b1c) 19:44:34:984 ImpersonateUser: Failed to impersonate
user with 5.
USERENV(61c.b1c) 19:44:35:000 GetUserNameAndDomain Failed to
impersonate user
USERENV(61c.b1c) 19:44:35:000 GetUserDNSDomainName: Domain name is NT
Authority. No DNS domain name available.
USERENV(db8.dc0) 19:44:57:640 LibMain: Process Name: C:\WINDOWS
\system32\userinit.exe
USERENV(61c.684) 19:44:57:984 ImpersonateUser: Failed to impersonate
user with 5.
<snip>
USERENV(4a8.6e8) 19:45:28:500 ImpersonateUser: Failed to impersonate
user with 5.
USERENV(4a8.6e8) 19:45:28:500 GetUserDNSDomainName: Failed to
impersonate user
USERENV(e28.194) 19:46:11:937 LibMain: Process Name: \\?\C:\WINDOWS
\system32\WBEM\WMIADAP.EXE
USERENV(19c.1a8) 19:46:12:875 LibMain: Process Name: C:\WINDOWS
\system32\wbem\wmiprvse.exe

Event log shows the following entry for the times logged above:

Event Type: Error
Event Source: Userenv
Event Category: None
Event ID: 1054
Date: 27/11/2008
Time: 19:42:10
User: NT AUTHORITY\SYSTEM
Computer: LAPTOP01
Description:
Windows cannot obtain the domain controller name for your computer
network. (The specified domain either does not exist or could not be
contacted. ). Group Policy processing aborted.

Event Type: Error
Event Source: Userenv
Event Category: None
Event ID: 1054
Date: 27/11/2008
Time: 19:45:04
User: NT AUTHORITY\SYSTEM
Computer: LAPTOP01
Description:
Windows cannot obtain the domain controller name for your computer
network. (The specified domain either does not exist or could not be
contacted. ). Group Policy processing aborted.

Event Type: Error
Event Source: UserInit
Event Category: None
Event ID: 1000
Date: 27/11/2008
Time: 19:45:05
User: N/A
Computer: LAPTOP01
Description:
Could not execute the following script \\domain.com\NETLOGON
\logon.vbs. The network location cannot be reached. For information
about network troubleshooting, see Windows Help.

The log file is made up of mostly "GetUserNameAndDomain Failed to
impersonate user" & "GetUserDNSDomainName: Domain name is NT
Authority. No DNS domain" errors. What's even stranger, is this isn't
happening on all laptops, only a few. It only happpens on machines
that have had FrontMotions FireFox Community Edition MSI installed via
Group Policy. I've tried uninstalling the MSI, but this makes no
difference, once installed this problem seems impossible to get rid of
until the laptop is formatted and has a clean install.

I've done some testing on a number of laptops, i.e. on Monday I got a
new laptop, formatted it, and installed a clean Windows XP SP3 build,
installed all our standard software via GP software installs (.Net 1.1
& 2.0, Office 2003, Adobe Acrobat 9, Jave 6, TugZip, Adobe Flash &
Shockwave etc), applied any updates & hotfixes.

I then brought the laptop home Monday night, and rebooted it a couple
of times, timing each one, each reboot was between 2mins 30secs &
2mins 40 secs. Then Tuesday, I tested deploying the FrontMotion
FireFox Community install. I rebooted in the office to make sure the
install worked, and it seemed OK. No other changes were made to the
system, no IP address or DNS settings changed.

But when I got it home again, I noticed startup took over 10 mins,
especially the 'running startup scripts' screen. I rebooted twice,
each time it was the same. During the second boot, I switched off the
wireless/bluetooth (Dell Latitude's have a little switch on the side
that turns on/off the wireless/bluetooth), the moment I switched it
off, the logon screen appeared. I can then turn the wi-fi back on, and
it'll work again for a while, until an application decides to hang,
turn the wi-fi off again, and the app will flick into life.

When I took the laptop back into the office today startup time was
back to normal. I uninstalled FireFox, and rebooted to make sure it
was gone. But again, back home tonight, startup time is over 10 mins,
unless I turn off the wi-fi.

I've googled the net, and these groups, and have found lots of similar
errors like this, but all seem to be for DNS errors when ON the domain/
network, which seems easier to diagnose/solve. I haven't found any
posts where this problem occures on remote users.

If anyone can suggest a solution, or point me in the right direction I
would be most grateful, this is a real pain in the backside for remote
users.

Many thanks

Ben

 

[Florian Frommherz [MVP]]

Ben,

When I took the laptop back into the office today startup time was
back to normal. I uninstalled FireFox, and rebooted to make sure it
was gone. But again, back home tonight, startup time is over 10 mins,
unless I turn off the wi-fi.

take a look at the Firefox installation and what it actually puts on the
client. Also, take a look at the logon script that you have - those two
may either interfere or Firefox adds some other logon script to the
machine - that's my first guess. The 10 minutes time could be related to
the timeout startup and logon scripts have - they get terminated after
10 minutes and booting/logging on is continued without them executed.

You could run a test by lowering the timeout value (there's a GP for
this, it should be the "Maximum wait time for Group Policy scripts"
policy at CompConf\AdmTempl\System\Logon). If they come up more quickly
after you changed the value (to five minutes = 300 seconds for example),
you can pursue that track further.

cheers,

Florian

 

[Ben]

Ben,

When I took the laptop back into the office today startup time was
back to normal. I uninstalled FireFox, and rebooted to make sure it
was gone. But again, back home tonight, startup time is over 10 mins,
unless I turn off the wi-fi.

take a look at the Firefox installation and what it actually puts on the
client. Also, take a look at the logon script that you have - those two
may either interfere or Firefox adds some other logon script to the
machine - that's my first guess. The 10 minutes time could be related to
the timeout startup and logon scripts have - they get terminated after
10 minutes and booting/logging on is continued without them executed.

You could run a test by lowering the timeout value (there's a GP for
this, it should be the "Maximum wait time for Group Policy scripts"
policy at CompConf\AdmTempl\System\Logon). If they come up more quickly
after you changed the value (to five minutes = 300 seconds for example),
  you can pursue that track further.

cheers,

Florian
--
Microsoft MVP - Group Policy
eMail: prename [at] frickelsoft [dot] net.
blog:http://www.frickelsoft.net/blog.
Maillist (german):http://frickelsoft.net/cms/index.php?page=mailingliste

Hi Florian,

Thanks for the reply.

I'm not to sure what to look at inside the FireFox MSI, everything
seems to be legit from what I can see.

I'm running some more tests today, I have a spare laptop which I've
wipped and re-installed our base Win XP SP3 build on. I've enabled
User Env Debugging, so will get a debug log of a clean boot up, then
install the FireFox MSI, and get another debug log after, then compare
the 2.

Also, I tried to find the 'Maximum wait time for Group Policy scripts'
but couldn't see it under 'Computer Configuration\Administrative
Templates\System\Logon' I even googled and found this MS TechNet
article which said the same as you:
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/prodtechnol/windows2000serv/reskit/gp/14.mspx?mfr=true
however, after looking through the GP Admin Templates, it turns out
that this setting is actually under 'Administrative Templates\System
\Scripts', I wonder if MS changed the location in some system.adm
template update, or if its always been there! Anyway, I've set the
timeout to 180 seconds, so will see if that improves things.

Thanks

Ben

 

[Ben]

OK, so I've run a test with another clean machine. I don't think its
specifically the software install now, as I've installed the FireFox
MSI on the new machine and it seems OK. However, after enabling
userenv logging on both I have found the the slow boot machine logs
100s of line with the following:

USERENV(4b0.510) 15:08:14:156 GetUserDNSDomainName: Failed to
impersonate user
USERENV(4b0.510) 15:08:14:156 ImpersonateUser: Failed to impersonate
user with 5.

New test laptop with clean build starts booting at 15:04:22:671 and
finishes at 15:06:11:312 which is around 1min 49 seconds. The clean
(ish) build laptop starts booting at 15:04:29:531 and ends at
15:08:48:671, a total time of 4 mins 19 seconds (this decreased after
lowering the logon script timeout to 3 mins rather than 10 or 5).

I've taken both userenv.log files, and run the through DiffDoc
(document comparing tool) and 90% of both files matches. The places
where its differs are filled with:

USERENV(670.698) 15:04:57:343 ImpersonateUser: Failed to impersonate
user with 5.
USERENV(670.698) 15:04:57:343 GetUserNameAndDomain Failed to
impersonate user
USERENV(670.698) 15:04:57:343 GetUserDNSDomainName: Domain name is NT
Authority. No DNS domain name available.
USERENV(670.698) 15:05:02:375 ImpersonateUser: Failed to impersonate
user with 5.
USERENV(670.698) 15:05:02:375 GetUserNameAndDomain Failed to
impersonate user
USERENV(670.698) 15:05:02:375 GetUserDNSDomainName: Domain name is NT
Authority. No DNS domain name available.