Windows XP slow when not connected to corporate LAN

[Guest]

We have several NEW HP and Dell notebooks that are part of the company domain
running XP SP2 with Offline Files disabled. They all get DHCP addresses from
the company network and when connected to the company LAN or not connected at
all, Windows responds in normal fashion.

The problem is when the users login with their domain accounts and these
notebooks have a network connection (WiFi at users' homes or users' Ethernet
at home), Windows is VERY slow to come up after login (average two minute
wait for desktop items to appear). And once inside Windows, even going to
'START > ALL Programs' can take up to two minutes. During this time there
does not appear to be any network, cpu, or hard disk activity. Attempting to
log off at this point brings up an End Now box with Explorer.exe hanging up.

While the users are logged in with their domain accounts and have a
(non-work) network connection, if they connect to work using their VPN
accounts Windows instantly becomes responsive to all requests of it.

What can we do to resolve the long delays when not on the company LAN?

 

[John]

When a user logs on from home effectively all of the users settings such as
desktop icons have to be transported from the domain server to the PC and it
sounds like this is across the internet, therefore the wait they are
experiencing at login. This is also the case with when opening the start
menu - each users icons are on the server and have to be moved across the
internet and again when the user logs off the settings have to be sent back
to the server.

One fix for a LAN would be to synchronise which is when the entire profile
is moved to the machine at logon and sent back at logoff, therefore staying
synchronised, however, I would not recommend this for your set up as the
initial logon wait will be far greater.

It shounds like you have VPN working successfully and would stick with this
method to allow users to access there files etc, you are correct in saying
it is quicker, this is because you use a local profile and just use the VPN
for using network resources such as allowing a user to have access to their
files.

Hope this helps.

 

[Guest]

Thank you for the insite John.

So if Windows XP EVER detects a network connection while a domain account is
logged on, it will look (causing our delays) for network resources at log
on/off and periodically while logged on?

Is there a way to reduce this? Is there some way to force XP to not look
for the network resources similar to when the notebooks dont have a network
connection?

The only "solution" I've found is to keep the notebooks disconnected from
any non-work network until just before connecting to the VPN (Ethernet cables
unplugged, WiFi disabled).

Thanks

 

[John]

So if Windows XP EVER detects a network connection while a domain account

is
logged on, it will look (causing our delays) for network resources at log
on/off and periodically while logged on?

Yes - if the users settings are on a server, i.e. login detials, a host PC
will try to retrive them and across the internet this can be an unpleasent
way of connecting to a network. This is why VPN is used.

Is there a way to reduce this? Is there some way to force XP to not look
for the network resources similar to when the notebooks dont have a
network
connection?

The only "solution" I've found is to keep the notebooks disconnected from
any non-work network until just before connecting to the VPN (Ethernet
cables
unplugged, WiFi disabled).

As you say the only solution is to physically disconnect the host from the
internet or do it by software by disabaling the connection. The other
solution is the way I would fix it but it might not be practical dependent
if the laptop is shared and how much control over the users you want ...
here goes ...

On each laptop set up a local account - not domain, then when a user logs on
they must connect to the VPN (whether connected to the corporate LAN or at
home), this will allow them to use all the network resources as they would
if they were logged into the domain (and as I assume they do now) and this
should fix the problem. Basically never log into the domain user but still
have it on the server to allow access to the VPN.

An advantage is that when the user is at home and logged into the domain the
interent traffic (if set up correctly) will go via the normal route, rather
than everything going through the companies server and link.

If you choose this method note that any settings changed such as desktop
icons will be local to the laptop, however, you can still allow the users
access to their files via the VPN, it might be nice to create some shortcuts
such as the VPN connection to the relevent IP address, the file path
(\\files\username\) and any printers.

 

[Guest]

Had the same issue. Actually posted the problem as well. My solution, which
was long in finding, was a UNC in a user search path. In this case it was
the domain netlogon share (\\domain.com\netlogon). I removed this and
peformance went back to normal when off the domain.

Hope this helps.