Startup Delay after SP2

[Richard Mesagna]

After installing SP2 I've noticed a delay of a minute or more after I see my
desktop and the programs in my startup folder appear in the system tray.

From reviewing the system event log this lapse of time seems to be tied to
the following warning message:

Event Type: Warning
Event Source: Dhcp
Event Category: None
Event ID: 1007

Description:
Your computer has automatically configured the IP address for the Network
Card with network address 00B0D0156B04. The IP address being used is
169.254.203.254.

I've also noticed that my local area network connection now indicates I have
limited or no connectivity, which is new.

Prior to SP2 I could immediately start using the internet when my desktop
appeared, now I have to wait for at least a minute and the system gives no
indication whatsoever as to what it's busy doing, not even an hour glass.

Once this period of time elapses my coneectivity is fine and I have no
further problems.

Anyone elese experience this behavior and can advise as how to correct?

Rich

 

[allan grossman [mvp]]

Hi, Rich -

My guess is it's taking services a little longer to start
than before you installed SP2. There are a couple of
pretty big changes to the way WinXP starts up and we
don't have a lot of information on what kinda stuff you
have running on startup.

You didn't mention whether you were using XP Home or XP
Professional, but if it's XP Professional the easiest
workaround I know of is to set a group policy object to
make sure the network is running on all cylinders before
XP gives you a logon prompt.

If you're running XP Professional, open the Group Policy
Editor (gpedit.msc) and browse to

Local Computer Policy --> Computer Configuration -->
Administrative Templates --> System --> Logon

Set the policy that says "Always wait for the network at
computer startup and logon". That'll solve the
connectivity problem but it'll take a few seconds longer
for your logon prompt to appear.

Without knowing a lot more about your machine and what
startup programs and services are running I'm afraid
that's about the only solution I can offer.

Hope this helps -

 

[Richard Mesagna]

hi allan,

thanks for the response, i'm running XP Pro.

i decided to rebuild my computer before installing SP2, it's been 2 years
since i last did that and i've always found that my computer runs so much
better after you clear out all that digital dust that accumulates over the
years. when i say i rebuilt my machine that means i had setup delete and
recreate my partition so that it would reformat my system disk and then do a
clean install of windows XP. of course i did a full system backup before
hand, so i can recover all of my important data.

once XP was up and running i installed SP2. after that i installed msn
software, quicken and msoffice because i require these programs on daily
basis. then my plan was to observe how my machine behaves with SP2 for a
while before installing any additional software.

my machine always booted rapidly with XP and boots a little faster with SP2.
from the time the bios gives control to the OS to the time i see my desktop
takes about 20 seconds. here is where i notice the delay, it takes more
than a minute before i see any icons in my system tray. with what i have
installed so far, the only one is msn messenger. i also observed that
during this period of time that i cannot open network connections from the
start menu or open the browser without it hanging.

when i look at the system event log i notice that i can account for this
period of time between the time the event log is started and this dhcp
warning message i gave you is recorded. after that there are 16 information
messages from service control manager indicating that various services have
started all in the span of 2 seconds.

my understanding is that the system is spending its time trying to contact a
dhcp server, but i don't understand why it's taking so much longer with SP2.
Since a server cannot be found, APIP assigns a private address for me. i
have dsl and use a PPPOE connection to get to the internet.

i'm going to try out your suggestion to see what kind of difference it
makes. of course if this means i'll be waiting an additional minute before
i see my desktop i don't think i'll like that any better.

one more observation, this delay only occurs when i first boot up the
machine, if i logoff and logon again there is no delay.

thanks again,

rich

 

[Richard Mesagna]

john,

thanks for the response, at least i found one other person who's observed
this delay.

i'm going to try allan's suggestion and post feedback.

rich

 

[Richard Mesagna]

allan,

i tried your suggestion, enabled the policy, rebooted, made no difference
whatsover, any other ideas?

thanks,

rich

 

[Richard Mesagna]

allan,

i read a ms kb article q220874 which discusses dhcp and apipa. manually
configuring the ip address disables dhcp. i entered the same ip address and
subnet mask that the system was assigning through apipa in the local area
connection ip properties tab.

this eliminated the delay and the warning message in the event log, so my
system starts as it did with sp1.

i don't consider this a proper solution, only a workaround that eliminates
that annoying delay until a better one can be found.

rich