Slow TS logon from dumb terminals.

[Brett Ward]

Hi All

I'm trying to help a small private school that's having trouble logging onto
their Terminal Server. It takes up to 15min. for the kids to log on. i.e.
Half the time of the class is spent logging on.

Its a pretty decent HP server. Two proccess, 1GB RAM.,etc. So I'm sure its
not the hardware. They're running Windows 2000 Server latest SP, and
connecting from about 15 dumb terminals?

Unfortunatly they're over 2000km away, so it's difficult trying to
troubleshoot over the phone. Any ideas and suggestions would be appreciated?
They have been taken for a ride by so many of the local IT companies, and
have spent a fortune on consultation and hardware.

Regards,
Brett

 

[Vera Noest [MVP]]

Could be anything, but a profile-related problem comes first to my
mind.
Do they have a roaming profile?
Does logoff also take a long time?
Check the EventLog on the Terminal Server for any entries,
especially related to loading or unloading of profiles.

If you find no error messages, and they use roaming profiles, make
sure that the home directory and profile directory are not one and
the same (otherwise they have to copy the complete content of the
home directory into their locally cached copy of the profile).
Also check that Temporary Internet Files are not roaming with the
profile.

 

[Brett Ward]

All the profiles are local profiles.

Logoff is instant.

Nothing in the event viewer.

The Home Folder local path is the only property set under each users
profile?

This really has me baffled.

 

[Vera Noest [MVP]]

How's the domain setup? Is this an AD?
What is the role of the TS in the domain? Does it have other tasks
as well?
Where are the user accounts located?
How many simultaneous logons? I guess that a class can consist of
15 - 30 kids?
How about teachers? Do they use this server also? For TS?
Are *all* logons *always* slow? I.e. if you would logon during
off-hours, is it slow as well?

I'm really not sure if you can troubleshoot this kind of problems
remotely.
There are thousands of questions to ask, and you could continue
for months without getting anywhere.

You'd probably be better off trying to find someone who can
recommend you a good consultant in the nearboorhood.

 

[Brett Ward]

I know... it is a pain doing this remotely. Unfortunately they have used
every single IT company up there and being charged a fortune, and all of
them say they've resolved the problem. But it seems to persist.

The structure is as follows:
They only have one server. The terminal services server. It is set up as the
Domain Controller, so yes, there is an AD structure. I'm not sure why it was
set up like this. It probably would've been easier setting it up as a stand
alone server. All the dumb terminals are connected to the server through a
100Mb switch.

The simultaneous logons are 15 kids max.

As to is it always slow...No, but about 99% of the time.

I will be flying up there in December, but was hoping to get this done
before then...so any ideas would be appreciated.

 

[Vera Noest [MVP]]

You write: "As to is it always slow...No, but about 99% of the
time.". It would be extremely useful to define that 1% when logons
are *not* slow. And than list the differences with the slow
logins.

* Is a login from the console also slow?
Or only logins from workstations / thin clients?
* Check all variations of normal user vs. Domain Administrator and
console versus client.
* Do the users run a login script? If so, does it help to disable
the script?
* Does the server run any anti-virus software? If so, check to see
if the Real-time protection component runs in every user session.
Disable the anti-virus software temporarily to check the effects
* Do you have local printers, which are redirected into the TS-
session? If so, does it help to disable printer redirection?
* From TS Manager and TaskManager on the server, check the
sessions and the processes that run inside them. Is there any
process taking 100% of the CPU?

You might have to use a network sniffer and FileMon and RegMon to
monitor in detail what is happening during a login. It sounds as
if the clients are looking for some resource, which they can't
find.
One example is an application searching for fonts during logon.
Applications that may cause this problem include NWScript.exe and
Lotus CC:Mail. The solution is to add %SystemRoot%\Fonts to the
Path variable on the server.

FileMon and RegMon can be downloaded from
http://www.sysinternals.com/. Run them as administrator and start
a TS session as a normal user.

FileMon and RegMon will show you all "access denied" or "file not
found" errors that occur. Maybe that will give you some more ideas
about the cause of the problem.

--
Vera Noest
MCSE,CCEA, Microsoft MVP - Terminal Server
http://hem.fyristorg.com/vera/IT
*----------- Please reply in newsgroup -------------*

 

[Brett Ward]

I think it's best if I have a look in December... unfortunately, the kids
are on holiday... so testing would be difficult.

As to your questions
Is a login from the console also slow?
No. I found this out this morning. If one or two users sign on, it logons on
fast, it's only when they have a full class?

Check all variations of normal user vs. Domain Administrator and
console versus client.?
Any varatios is slow, but normal users a generally the only ones that use
the thin clients.

Do the users run a login script? If so, does it help to disable
the script?
No logon scripts

Does the server run any anti-virus software? If so, check to see
if the Real-time protection component runs in every user session.
Disable the anti-virus software temporarily to check the effects?
No virus protection as only the server has s CD Rom/USB Access/Floppy. And
there is no internet access.

Do you have local printers, which are redirected into the TS-
session? If so, does it help to disable printer redirection?
There is a printer shared, but it's local to the server.

From TS Manager and TaskManager on the server, check the
sessions and the processes that run inside them. Is there any
process taking 100% of the CPU?
This I'll need to get someone to check.

Thanks for the help, it's really appreciated. I'd really like to try and get
this solved. I'm not invoicing or charging the school for the work, as I
think they've spent enough, and had enough troubles.

Regards,
Brett