Slow User Switching

[Guest]

Please help. The exact same PC used to have Windows XP Pro, and FUS was very
fast. Now that I've upgraded to Vista, FUS takes about 40 seconds just to
get to the account selection page. Then another 10 seconds to switch to the
already logged in account.

I've looked at the Performance/Reliability logs, but nothing jumps out. How
can I figure out what's taking so long? I've tried uninstalling all
extraneous services, and disabled most hardware devices, but no luck.

My machine is a Pentium 4, dual core, 3.2GHz with 1GB RAM, with a 4.3
Windows Experience Index. I'm running Vista Home Premium, 32-bit.

Please, please help.
Cheers,
-Dan.

 

[E Jacob]

Please help. The exact same PC used to have Windows XP Pro, and FUS was
very
fast. Now that I've upgraded to Vista, FUS takes about 40 seconds just to
get to the account selection page. Then another 10 seconds to switch to
the
already logged in account.

I've looked at the Performance/Reliability logs, but nothing jumps out.
How
can I figure out what's taking so long? I've tried uninstalling all
extraneous services, and disabled most hardware devices, but no luck.

My machine is a Pentium 4, dual core, 3.2GHz with 1GB RAM, with a 4.3
Windows Experience Index. I'm running Vista Home Premium, 32-bit.

Please, please help.
Cheers,
-Dan.

Hi Dan,

You might experience delays if there are open applications in the account
you are switching from. This is true in Windows XP as well but given Vista's
appetite for RAM it may be the reason why it is more noticeable. Vista uses
at least 30% of RAM just to run itself. With another user logging in,
demands for resources will increase. Additionally Vista must maintain open
programs in memory in case the logged off user wants to log back in.

Your machine specs are quite capable but increasing the RAM will give you a
better all around performance.

I'd leave the services and hardware devices alone.

 

[Hugh Wyn Griffith]

Interesting -- I've always used (and blessed) FUS in XP for its
simplicity and speed when my wife comes along and wants to check her
email or bank account while I'm doing something else <g>

I've set up VISTA the same way so far as users are concerned but not
set up her account or switched much to it yet.

I get the impression that the two FUS's are differently set up, perhaps
partly due to our friend UAC? Now when I do WINKEY + L to switch users,
I first of all get a screen up saying User account locked and have to
click on a Switch user button.

When I do that the first thing I get is a blackout with my monitor
telling me it has no signal and then I get the choice of User accounts.
I select my wife's account and it goes through a long log-on procedure
for her, much longer than XP and then it brings up her desktop.

If she is already logged on then it is quicker to switch from my
account to hers as one might expect but the whole procedure is much
more complicated and long-winded than before.

 

[Guest]

I'll probably take your advice and add more RAM, but I doubt it will help.
For the purpose of my tests, I intentionally had no applications running at
all, neither in the system tray, services, nor even the Gadgets panel, and
was switching to an account that was already logged in. As a matter of fact,
it takes about 40-50 seconds to just FUS to the very same account I just came
from.

Does anyone know if there's a way to monitor each process's CPU usage during
this process? The Task Manager shows me this information in real-time, but I
need to see each the information as it changes over time instead. I suppose
I could write my own, but does this already exist? The
Perfoemance/Reliability monitors don't seem to allow me to add existing
processes, just existing categories of metrics.

I'm open for suggestions. Much appreciated.
-Dan.

 

[Guest]

Incidentally, I've turned off the annoying UAC, so that's out of the picture.
When I use the WinKey + L, it gets me to the "User Account Locked" page
fairly quickly, but when I click on the "Switch User" button, that's when it
takes the 40-50 seconds to switch.

Cheers,
-Dan.

 

[Hugh Wyn Griffith]

when I click on the "Switch User" button, that's when it 
takes the 40-50 seconds to switch.

I'll check that out. But from memory, the total time to switch with
WINKEY + L was of that order.

 

[Guest]

I took your advice, and upgraded to 2GB of RAM, and it had no effect.
I'll keep the extra memory anyhow, since I do a lot of video editing and that
will help.

Does anyone else have any suggestions/comments/personal experiences related
to this?

Cheers,
-Dan.

 

[Guest]

This is exatly what I was searching the forum for; to see if there was a way
to bypass the Account locked screen when using the Win+L shortcut and get
straight to the Switch User screen, as was the case in XP. It seems like a
small thing, but the two-step process really gets annoying when you have to
switch users frequently.

In the Start menu there is an option for Lock (which takes you to the
Account locked screen) and a seperate option for Switch User (which takes you
straight to the Switch User screen) so I would imagine there must be some way
to set up a shortcut for that command if you just knew what was running when
you clicked "Switch Users". Hopefully someone can figure it out.

 

[Hugh Wyn Griffith]

There's an interesting article in the Feb PCWorld on some initial
trials with VISTA including the effect of RAM with Photoshop and some
other applications. Going from 1GB to 2GB did have some effect in
Photoshop -- 5% - 10% faster except for a HP laptop where it was 27%
faster with 2GB but this had a duo core CPU.

http://www.pcworld.com/article/id,128305-page,1/article.html

But not much on the web page above -- you need the paper copy to see
details.

I always take these magazine reports with a large grain of salt but
they often show up unexpected aspects of our technology.

 

[Guest]

I agree, the "account locked" screen is useless and annoying. It seems that
the only solution to bypass it is the way mansart describes. The file you are
looking for is "tsdiscon.exe" in c:\windows\system32 folder. Unfortunately,
you can't assign winkey+L shortcut command for a copy of this file, but any
ctrl+alt-shortcutkey.

 

[Guest]

Hi Dan,

I'm having the same issues as you and others are. It's extremely annoying.
It is not 'fast user switch' it is 'slow user switch'. This is what happens:

1) Press windows=key + L - You are taken to the 'account is locked' screen
instead of the user-selection screen which is ridiculous and non-useful. Why
doesn't it take you directly to the user-selection screen like XP did?
2) Click on 'Switch User'
3) The monitor loses signal and then comes back - this takes several seconds.
4) Click on the user that you want to log in as, enter the password.
5) The monitor loses signal and then comes back - this takes several seconds.
6) Finally the user is logged in.

I really hope, like you, that someone can find a resolution to this very
real issue.

I'm running 2GB of ram too and don't buy the notion that this is a
ram-related issue. The same exact behavior above occurs when no applications
are running. Both users being switched-from and switched-to have the same
monitor settings (resolution, refresh rate, and color depth).

 

[Ronnie Vernon MVP]

I'm not sure what issues are involved with this, but i get very fast results
whether I use the Start/Switch User or WinKey+L, using a similar system as
the OP.

Start/Switch User is 11 seconds from start to logged on with another account
and WinKey+L is 14 seconds.

This is with WinMail, IE, Illustrator and several other programs open.

 

[Guest]

I'm still trying to figure out what file runs when you click Switch User on
the Start menu. I don't have a file called tsdiscon.exe on my Vista Home
Premium system (though this file does exist on my XP system). Anyone have a
clue?

 

[Guest]

Hi Jeff,

I noticed the "monitor losing signal" part of this process as well. Maybe
this is the key to the issue? I run dual monitors, and I've noticed that it
also re-positions all my desktop gadgets from one monitor to the other after
re-starting, logging off/on or for user switching.

I think the problem seems to be Windows switching to a different video mode
for the login screen than it uses for the desktop. It's probably doing this
for some kind of 'safe mode' compatibility reason, but I'm hoping for a way
to allow it to go to the login screen without switching video modes. My gut
says this will fix the slow user switching problem as well.

Boyd