Friday, September 28, 2007

Slow Login Times when using My Documents Redirection

I used My Documents folder redirection in a Windows 2000 domain 5 years ago and never had any slow login errors or issues.  When I tried to implement the same type of policy on Windows XP SP2, I started seeing a minimum 20 second login time.  Especially when you refreshed the group policy.

It looks like Microsoft has identified a problem with Ntlanman.dll and created a hotfix.  It looks like they have rolled the update into Windows 2003 SP2 and may be slated to include the update in XP SP3.

To recreate the problem:
  1. Apply the group policy (gpupdate /force) and logout
  2. Login as user with My Documents redirected
  3. Log out and in again to see no login time penalty
  4. Force the application of group policy (gpupdate /force) and logout
  1. or wait a day or two for the policy to refresh on its own
  • Login as the same user and see a minimum 20-second login time penalty when you see the "Apply personal settings"

  • You may experience a 20-second delay when you try to access a redirected folder by logging on to a Windows Server 2003 Service Pack 1-based computer or to a Windows XP Service Pack 2-based computer

    Friday, September 21, 2007

    Windows XP Remote Assistance URL

    hcp://CN=Microsoft%20Corporation,L=Redmond,S=Washington,C=US/Remote%20Assistance/Escalation/Unsolicited/unsolicitedrcui.htm

    Windows Vista is not a url but a full application.
    %SystemRoot%\system32\msra.exe

    Now if I could only figure out how to pass variables to either the application or the url.

    Thursday, September 20, 2007

    Limited SMS Permissions

    Make sure to have SMS users part of the local group .\Distributed Com Users.

    http://support.microsoft.com/kb/317872