Windows 7 Delayed Logon Screen

 

After booting a Windows it stops at a black screen with the cursor just before the logon screen.

Download process monitor from Microsoft.

Enabled Boot Logging in Process Monitor by going to Options > Enable Boot Logging and selected to generate profiling events every second.

Reset the filter to the Process Tree to see the start and end times of various processes upon system startup. Scrolling through the tree looking at lifetime column for one that had sat for the longest amount of time.

Once found look at the offending tool/service and see if it can be removed or updated and then you will be back to a speedy boot.

 

This information came from Greig Mitchell's Blog

W2K8R2–>Windows Server 2012

 

There are been some massive improvements in scale in Windows Server 2012, here are the key new features in virtualisation…

Subsystem, services	R2	2012	Improvement factor
Hardware CPU	64	3200	5x
Hardware RAM	1TB	4TB	4x
Virtual CPU	512	1024	2x
CPU per VM	4	64	16x
RAM per VM	64GB	1TB	16x
Running VMs	384	1024	2.7x
Virtual disk size	2TB	64TB	32x
Cluster nodes	16	64	4x
VMs	1000	4000	4x

For VDI there are some nice new features, and one of the best in the new VDI wizard… More to come here.

Note: from TechEd 2012

Windows 7/2008r2 Group Policy diagnostic event log

 

Windows 7 / 2008R2 Group Policies are located in the Event Viewer. Under
\Applications and Services Logs\Microsoft\Windows\Group Policy\Operational.

While Windows 7 logs many events to event log you sometimes need the operational additional information.

GPO is processed by the Windows  service called "Group Policy Client". You can enable a detailed diagnostic report for this services via the reg key:

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Diagnostics]
"GPSvcDebugLevel"=dword:00030002

The log files are: %WINDIR%\debug\usermode\gpsvc.log

(need to reboot or restart the service).

BYOD, are you a part of the problem?

 

A common user pet peeve is that organisations take too long to deploy new hardware, operating systems, and applications. BYOD enables users to embrace cutting edge technologies on their own, which reduces frustration and leads to happier employees.

A fringe benefit of happy, satisfied workers is increased productivity. Users who have the freedom to choose the platforms and devices that seem most intuitive to them are able to accomplish basic tasks faster. Users armed with newer technology can work more efficiently than users forced to work with systems they find frustrating or confusing.

We found that:

1. 67 % of people are using personal devices in the workplace whether its officially sanctioned or not.

2. More organisations prohibit BYOD than subsidise BYOD.

The above is a snippet taken from the article: BYOD–is it Good, Bad or Ugly from the User Viewpoint? All credit to Jeff Jones, for me it just struck a sore point…

Boot time Windows XP and Windows 7

 

I know that ‘people’ game the statistics on boot time, they don't join a domain, disable lots of services, use SSD drives, disable POST etc… Well that looks good on stage but in the real world, computers are upgraded, have PXE turned on, BIOS is out of the box, run anti-virus and are domain members.

I needed a real working set , so in extensive testing (2 identical and mid-spec computers – hey I did it twice). Here is the comparison.

So on the same hardware (Dell OptiPlex 790)

Windows XP:	Windows 7:
BIOS: 20 seconds OS Boot time: 40 To the logon screen: 1:27 To the desktop (logged on): 2:11 To power off: 2:47	BIOS: 20 seconds OS Boot time: 54 To the logon screen: 1:22 To the desktop (logged on): 1:42 To power off: 1:58

So the Windows 7 computer is not faster to boot however it is however faster to the users desktop and ready to use about in 1/5th of the time of the Windows XP machine.

Faster still is to stop using power off, shutdown and power on, sleep takes 9 seconds and to wake up take 4 seconds. The power consumption in sleep mode is 5% of the running power when compared to being fully powered..

Notes about this:

1. Same hardware, RAM, disk, network etc
2. WXP and W7 current and fully patched (both new builds)
3. Similar apps (office 2003 v office 2010 etc)
4. Both with SAV AV
5. Same logon to domain (folder redirection)

Create Windows 7 64bit USB flash install media on Linux PC

(this was so easy before I never bothered to blog it, but this time, maybe because it was 64bit, maybe because of the colour of the moon, it took about 4 different attempts, so here it is…)

Use either df or other command to find your USB device

$ df -h

Filesystem      Size  Used Avail Use% Mounted on

/dev/sda1       691G  488G  169G  75% /
udev            3.8G   12K  3.8G   1% /dev
tmpfs           1.6G  940K  1.6G   1% /run
none            5.0M     0  5.0M   0% /run/lock
none            3.9G  436K  3.8G   1% /run/shm
/dev/loop0      5.3G  5.3G     0 100% /mnt/iso
/dev/mmcblk0p1  3.8G   32K  3.8G   1% /media/72AD-2013_
/dev/sdb 8G 0G 8G 0% /media/usbdrive

 

Check what device your USB media is assigned above it is /dev/sdb.

 

Use gparted to dismount and format the drive to NTFS (creates /dev/sdb1 on /dev/sdb)

 

Mount ISO and USB media:

$ sudo mkdir /mnt/iso

$ sudo mkdir /mnt/usb

$ sudo mount -o loop Windows7-64bit.iso /mnt/iso

$ sudo mount /dev/sdb1 /mnt/usb

 

Copy over all files (GUI or command line):

$ cp -r /mnt/iso/* /mnt/usb/

 

Download, untar, and install (make, sudo make install) ms-sys from here.

Use ms-sys to install a Windows 7 Master Boot Record on the USB stick:

$ ms-sys -7 /dev/sdb

 

And away you go…

Well you got your MDACs and .NETs but what versions?

 

How you can see if and what version of the .NET Framework has been installed?

You can look in the registry or look at the files on the boot drive;

via the reegistry check the keys under HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\.NETFramework\*

Or check for a local directory like %windir%\Microsoft.NET\Framework\<version>

where <version> is

v1.1.4322 - for .NET Framework v1.1
v1.0.3705 - for .NET Framework v1.0
v2…. Etc etc

 

How you can see if and what version of the MDAC has been installed?

Download and install: http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=1953

Run the too CC.EXE in the folder C:\CompChecker\