SBS2011, Win7 Laptops, ASUS Laptop displays Please wait for 5-7 minutes on boot up

I think the issue is with the WiFi card not authenticating to the wireless until after you've logged on.  What's happening is the computer starts up and sees the WiFi has an active "connection" so it tries to communicate with the ADC to pull down computer and security policies.  The problem is the WiFi hasn't authenticated (this is sometimes called single-sign on or pre-sign on) so the network isn't really up so the client waits a couple minutes for the domain controller to respond before it gives up and continues loading.

I would look in your WiFi NIC settings on the ASUS and see if there is a way to get pre-authentication setup.

Reviewing the event logs, I'm seeing winlogon warnings in the application event log: The winlogon notification subscriber <gpclient> took 609 seconds to handle the notification event (CreateSession).

Event ID: 6006

Download bootVIS tool and try to run it.. I hope it still supports windows 7 coz it would diffidently show which service/process is slowing down the boot process.

http://www.softpedia.com/get/Tweak/System-Tweak/BootVis.shtml

BootVIS is explicitly advertised as supporting XP only.

You say that this is a newly setup SBS 2011 install. Have you done *any* customizations to it? Specifically, are you using group policies or scripts to map drives or shared printers? A script or printer driver misbehaving is the most common cause for the delays you describe.

You can try and go to properties and choose the run as windows XP option.. I think it works! can't remember but I think I did use it once.

How are these laptops connecting to the network? Wireless or wired?

Going along the same lines as @mcsween I'd do this...

If you are connecting wirelessly then yes, possibly the connection isn't coming up in time and it causes the timeout - disable the wireless(or just connect with cable to test)

If cabled connection works fine then you have a wireless issue
If after connecting with the cable you are still getting the slow boot/login then its not network related and we'll have to look elsewhere...

Can you provide the Application and System event log files from one of the laptops for us to have a look?

Well, the idea of the wireless authentication being the issue seemed like a stroke of genius to me, but, unfortunatly, after disabling the wireless and connecting to the switch with a cable, no difference in boot time!!! I did run the best practices analyzer and it came up with no violations of best practices on its initial run. I didn't do anything to configure the analyzer in any way, just let it run as it was installed.

As for the customization of SBS2011, this was an install from a retail DVD to an HP Proliant server, bare metal. Someone else did the install; I was called on the scene after that. The only group policy I personally added was to give domain users local admin rights on their individual machine. Can't say what else was done before I got here. Remember, too, that there are the two Lenovo laptops that seem to do fine, exhibiting under a minute at the Please wait... stage, and they are connecting wirelessly with NO pre-authentication.

I tried to attach the System & App Event logs, both at evtx and zip files but the uploader won't accept them. Suggestions on how to attach them, maybe something I'm missing? Thanks!

Rename the event logs to .txt I think will bypass that

Compress them into zip file, I think EE supports ZIP extension!

What happens if you manually enter the IP of the server as primary DNS on workstation (IPV4)
Also check if IPV6 is running on server.
Did the BPA come up with anything at all?
Olaf

Here are the app and sys event logs... renamed to .txt file.
appevent.evtx.txt
sysevent.evtx.txt

Ok, as you said nothing clear in the eventlogs...

I'd run that software I mentioned previously, have had great success with it finding the cause of slow boot/login issues, last time it pointed to an issue with Symantec Endpoint - what AV have you on these machines?

With Soluto installed it breaks down the startup process so you can see exactly what that 5 minute delay is which is causing the issue...

In response to Olaf, yes, IPV6 is running, static IP is set and the DNS address is set to the same IP address. I'm installing the Soluto product now to see what that tells us. Thanks for continuing to watch this thread.

So I ran Soluto... it's telling me that boot takes 1:27 min and the desktop was responsive after 0:46. But the laptop still displays the please wait... message for over 5 minutes. What's next???

Did you run the SBS BPA as per my first thread?

Normally there's a graphic that shows the processes/steps during boot in Soluto(on the web front I think this is) - on any machine I ever tested with this software it breaks down the time from switch on to desktop and I can see the service/process that takes longest...what was the last service/process that it shows at the 1.27 mark vs the first service/process before the 0.46 desktop time can you see?

Responding to Olaf again about the SBS BPA, it came up with nothing. See additional details in an earlier response. Thanks.

This is BPA version 1.3?
http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=15556 second file. Run repair.
Olaf

Haven't been back at this site to follow up, but should do so shortly. If not, I'll close the question.

I was never able to get to the bottom of this so am closing the question. Thanks for all your ideas.