Hi All,
Although we don't have the specific problems here and have fairly decent startup times, we do very occasionally see machines taking longer than usual at 'applying group policy' screen. They do get past this, but can take few minutes to get to the ctrl+alt+del screen and happens very infrequently.
When this does happen in the event logs we usually see System Error 1129, which states 'The processing of Group Policy failed because of lack of network connectivity to a domain controller.'
We do have a slightly more complicated setup than many possibly as we have an 802.1x wired network that switches from unauthenticated to authenticated during startup, and I believe this is possibly the issue occasionally.
During investigation, and it is still in the early testing phases, I have found the following post SP1 hotfixes seem to improve the situation and have seemingly improved startup and login times for every machine. On our test machines since applying the fixes I have not seen the long startup times but as I say, we don't see them that frequently anyway.
The hotfixes I intend to rollout for further testing include:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2524478 - Network location profile changes from Domain to Public at boot
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2617858 - Unexpectedly slow startup or logon process
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2510636 - Improves the startup performance of Windows 7
A hotfix that I have tried that relates to the 1129 error, our network configuration and DHCP so might be worth Darin trying is:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2459530
The one that seems to have improved the startup times most for us is 2524478.
Cheers,
Simon.
________________________________________
From: Support issues for windows in UK HE & FE [[log in to unmask]] on behalf of Cruickshanks, Darin [[log in to unmask]]
Sent: 31 October 2012 21:30
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Windows 7 hanging at "Applying Computer settings" and similar messages
Mike,
We have been seeing this exact same problem for about the last 6 months. The only fix we have for the moment is the same as you, boot into safe mode and wait for the little blue circle to stop spinning on the network icon in the system tray. After a reboot the PC then behaves normally for about 1-2 weeks. The problem seems to be exaggerated if a PC is switched off for a period of time.
I would be *very* interested in hearing about your setup as this is driving us mad, not to mention extremely embarrassing! We have external support people looking at this for us as well as considerable time being spent in-house. We have recently started a program of switching back to Windows XP, that is how serious a problem it is to us!
We have Windows 7 Enterprise 32 bit on about 900 lab PCs spread over 3 different sites. On an average day I probably get about 30 develop this problem and require manual repair. I have about 300 staff PCs with Windows 7 installed and none of those exhibit this behaviour!!!
We deploy our lab PCs by building a single PC and then imaging it using CloneZilla (mixture of server and live CD mode), then finally using NEWSID.EXE from Microsoft to regenerate the SIDs.
We’re using Active Directory with heavy use of Group policy to deploy the software.
Below is a list of areas we have suspected the fault to lie and what the outcome of investigation has been –
CloneZilla (Imaging tool). I suspected this from the off but manually building a whole lab from scratch didn’t appear to help, we still get PCs develop this fault.
NEWSID.EXE (to regenerate SIDs). We have yet to try SYSPREP and this may still be where the problem lies. Last time I gave SYSPREP a go it crashed.
Licensing. We use a KMS server and I had thought that because we don’t use SYSPREP it could be down to duplicate GUIDs when a PC attempts to get a licence. Checking an affected PC shows different IDs, and our KMS server suggests that licensing is performing properly. To completely rule it out I have switched a bunch of PCs to using a MAC code, we’ve yet to establish if this has helped.
DHCP. Our lab lease time is 8 hours. We noticed that a PC would develop this fault if it was switched off for longer than the lease time. Increasing the lease time appeared to take the time to the fault developing along with it. Last thing I tried was to set the lease time to 5 mins and this actually appears to have fixed a whole lab which hasn’t had a problem for about 6 weeks! So, suspecting DHCP, I changed a whole lab to using static IPs. Two weeks went by and then practically the whole lab developed the fault! I have now (yesterday) switched two other labs to 5 minute leases to see what happens.
Our external support company have also suggested a number of bug fixes from Microsoft but so far nothing has worked.
I’m now wondering if this is a rogue GP setting somewhere. In my 20 years working with these damn things I have never worked on something so infuriating so anything you can share that might find the smoking gun would be great!
Thanks,
Darin
--------------------------------------------
Darin Cruickshanks
Lab Support Manager
Information Systems Services
University of Essex
T 01206 873585
From: Support issues for windows in UK HE & FE [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Mike Collett
Sent: 30 October 2012 21:00
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Windows 7 hanging at "Applying Computer settings" and similar messages
Hi all
The Windows 7 computers in some our labs have started hanging on occasions with the message "Applying Computer settings" or “Please wait for Group Policy Settings”. We have found that booting into safe mode and the rebooting without even login in fixes the problem for a while. However, the issue soon returns. Has anyone experience a similar issue? If so how did you fix it.
Regards
Mike
--
Mike Collett
PC Development Team Manager
IT Services
Loughborough University
Loughborough
Leicestershire
LE11 3TU
Phone: +44 (0) 1509 226034
Fax: +44 (0) 1509 223989
Email: [log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>
www.lboro.ac.uk<http://www.lboro.ac.uk>
[Loughborough University]
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