Slow XP login

[joar]

One of the laptops at work uses appr. 2 minutes while trying to log on
to the computer when no network is present. The XP-client is a member
of a w2k-domain. Login when the domain is available takes virtually no
time (10 secs.). I realize that XP has to figure out that the DC is
not available, but the other 20 (or so) clients at work logs in at
about 30 secs. when no network is present. I've tried to statically
define both DNS (the one residing on the DC and the ISP) and WINS.
Nothing seems to help. We don't use roaming profiles. Two questions
for you folks:

1) Is it possible to speed up the process in which XP tries to
discover the DC?
2) What is the procedure XP follows when trying to logon? (I really
don't get why it takes so long for XP to discover that the DC is gone)

Thanks!

 

[Ron Lowe]

One of the laptops at work uses appr. 2 minutes while trying to log on
to the computer when no network is present. The XP-client is a member
of a w2k-domain. Login when the domain is available takes virtually no
time (10 secs.). I realize that XP has to figure out that the DC is
not available, but the other 20 (or so) clients at work logs in at
about 30 secs. when no network is present. I've tried to statically
define both DNS (the one residing on the DC and the ISP) and WINS.
Nothing seems to help. We don't use roaming profiles. Two questions
for you folks:

1) Is it possible to speed up the process in which XP tries to
discover the DC?
2) What is the procedure XP follows when trying to logon? (I really
don't get why it takes so long for XP to discover that the DC is gone)

Thanks!

If the network is not present, then the network cable will report as
disconnected, and then there should be no IP address or DNS or anything
else.

An ipconfig /all should report 'media disconnected'.

This should result in immediate logon using cached credentials.

Has someone perhaps disabled media sense on the LAN adapter?
That would prevent it realising the network was not present.
The process is described here:

How to Disable Media Sense for TCP/IP in Windows (Q239924)
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;Q239924

To un-do this, just delete the value listed.