I’ve recently had a problem with very slow logins on two laptops (HP nx7010s) when they were offline. One we resolved in the end by reloading WinXP, but a second case has me wondering what the real cause is.
When the laptops are off the network, the usual “Can’t access your roaming profile .. use local .. etc ” message doesn’t appear, and instead the user gets the “Loading your personal settings” which will take 20-30 minutes to change. When the laptops were/are on the network the logon works fine.
I’ve tried deleting the locally cached profile to have it reloaded from the DC. I’ve checked that the ADS is accessible and that DNS is available. I have noticed that when using the local machine admin account that you can’t access the properties under My Computer when this problem occurs.
It almost seems that Windows doesn’t detect that there is no network connection and goes looking for a DC it will never find. Given that is has happened on 2 laptops, and was solved on one by reloading XP it doesn’t sound like a hardware fault.
Has anyone seen this problem before? Any suggestions on what to look at or how to fix this would be appreciated. A XP reload will fix it, but it still doesn’t tell me why, not to mention take time.
Many thanks,
Innes (NZ)
