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Slow login for some users on all PC's other users have no problems

I recently added all the PC's in a remote office that was recently acquired to the corporate 2003 domain. The remote office has a dsl connection with a constant VPN connection to corporate. Initially there were no problems but after a week 4 of the 8 users started having issues. The two most obvious issues are that logins for these users take 15 to 30 minutes and the local copy of Outlook will no longer communicate with the Exchange server. The PC can ping the Exchange server by name. These issues follow the users to whatever PC they use in the office. The other 4 users have no problems. They login in less than a minute on any PC in the office.

One of the four users that is having a problem was created after all the problems started on Thursday. Her very first login took around 30 minutes. Her account was created by copying one of the other troubled users.

Please help.

Michael_Melb_Aust

Have you checked there profiles are not roaming profiles? And if they are they are either - a: the profiles are not stupidly big, b: located on a server hosted in a different location or c: corrupt (recreating the profiles would fix this)

Sembee

What are you using for DNS in that remote site? If there is no domain controller there, are you trying to use the ISP for DNS? If so, that is probably the problem. You need to ensure the clients are using your server fro DNS - no external DNS Servers should be involved.
Obviously that introduces a problem with DNS resolution going over the VPN connection and not being available if the VPN link fails.

Simon.

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GWNet-working

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tcarrillo

ASKER

None of the users are using roaming profiles.

All PC's DNS is pointed to the corporate DNS server which is also the AD Server.

My Documents was redirected to the users Home directories. I disabled the GPO and it is a big help though it may not be the only problem. I am testing with a user who logged in immediately to one machine but is still not logged into another after 15 minutes.

tcarrillo

ASKER

The problem is a combination of the GPO in concjunction with Offline Folders synchronizing My Documents onto a local shared network drive. The GPO is gone and I've disabled Offline Folders but on some of the PC's I don't have the option to change My Documents back to a local folder. When I go into the Properties for My Documents instead of the first tab being "Target" it's something else(I don't have access to the PC's at the moment). It shows the path to the home directory but there is no option to change it back to the local Docuements and Settings path.

Any ideas?

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Michael_Melb_Aust

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tcarrillo

ASKER

Though all the help has been very good and I've learned quite a bit, I surrender. I keep running into different walls. I would like to remove the profiles completely and start all over. Logging in as a local machine admin I cannot delete the profile through System and I cannot delete the user folder under Documents and Settings. Any ideas, yet again?

Michael_Melb_Aust

You need to restart windows xp to be able to delete profiles that have been used since the last restart. Logging off and in as administrator does not close the profile enough to delete it

tcarrillo

ASKER

I didn't end up needing to delete the profiles. It seems that some of the changes with GPO and redirection took place over time rather than immediatley after a reboot. After the weekend all the troubled users reported drastically improved speeds.

Michael_Melb_Aust

Great, I'm glad it worked out!