B
Ben Gagnon
I have a situation whereby Windows 2000 logons will every now and again
(about one in four attempts) take two minutes to complete. The "normal"
logon time for our workstations is about twelve seconds. This certainly
didn't happen last semester (this is a University computer lab setting).
Here's the strange part: No errors manifest themselves in the event logs.
There's no mention of a timeout or any other related event anywhere I can
find. HOWEVER, when I consult the Security log (where we audit everything
under the sun), I find that in cases where a login takes over two minutes I
will find an entry where, during the login process, the SYSTEM user creates
a new process for control.exe and immediately after this entry, nothing else
will happen for EXACTLY two minutes. I'm looking at one event log where the
control.exe process gets created at 5:33:32pm and then the next event in the
security log is a Privilege Use event at 5:35:32pm.
Of course this sounds like a very specific timeout. But I can't figure out
what's causing it! And of course control.exe is the Windows Control Panel.
Most of our Control Panel objects are those that are found in every standard
Windows deployment. Those that aren't standard are listed below:
BDE Administrator (Borland Database Engine)
Java Plug-in (JRE 1.4.1_03, I think)
QuickTime (version 6.3)
These have never given us trouble before.
Other details:
- Windows 2000 SP4, latest patches, etc.
- Windows 2000 Server/AD back end, about 13,500 active computer lab users
- Folder Redirection via Group Policy used to redirect Desktop, My
Documents, Application Data and Start Menu to a pretty big NetApp NAS server
- Default User profile size of about 4 MB (we believe in lean profiles)
- Group Policy not a factor; this delayed logon behavior was observed in
test situations where no group policies were applied
In short... HELP!
Thanks much,
--Ben
--
---------------------------------------
Ben Gagnon
Electronics Technician
PC Classroom Operations/OIT
bgagnon(at)oit(dot)umass(dot)edu
University of Massachusetts, Amherst
(about one in four attempts) take two minutes to complete. The "normal"
logon time for our workstations is about twelve seconds. This certainly
didn't happen last semester (this is a University computer lab setting).
Here's the strange part: No errors manifest themselves in the event logs.
There's no mention of a timeout or any other related event anywhere I can
find. HOWEVER, when I consult the Security log (where we audit everything
under the sun), I find that in cases where a login takes over two minutes I
will find an entry where, during the login process, the SYSTEM user creates
a new process for control.exe and immediately after this entry, nothing else
will happen for EXACTLY two minutes. I'm looking at one event log where the
control.exe process gets created at 5:33:32pm and then the next event in the
security log is a Privilege Use event at 5:35:32pm.
Of course this sounds like a very specific timeout. But I can't figure out
what's causing it! And of course control.exe is the Windows Control Panel.
Most of our Control Panel objects are those that are found in every standard
Windows deployment. Those that aren't standard are listed below:
BDE Administrator (Borland Database Engine)
Java Plug-in (JRE 1.4.1_03, I think)
QuickTime (version 6.3)
These have never given us trouble before.
Other details:
- Windows 2000 SP4, latest patches, etc.
- Windows 2000 Server/AD back end, about 13,500 active computer lab users
- Folder Redirection via Group Policy used to redirect Desktop, My
Documents, Application Data and Start Menu to a pretty big NetApp NAS server
- Default User profile size of about 4 MB (we believe in lean profiles)
- Group Policy not a factor; this delayed logon behavior was observed in
test situations where no group policies were applied
In short... HELP!
Thanks much,
--Ben
--
---------------------------------------
Ben Gagnon
Electronics Technician
PC Classroom Operations/OIT
bgagnon(at)oit(dot)umass(dot)edu
University of Massachusetts, Amherst