Citrix states in their article: CTX101705

CTX101705 - Troubleshooting Slow Logons

This document was published at: http://support.citrix.com/kb/entry.jspa?externalID=CTX101705

Document ID: CTX101705, Created on: Mar 27, 2003, Updated: Aug 13, 2003

Products: Citrix MetaFrame XP 1.0 for Microsoft Windows 2000, Citrix MetaFrame XP 1.0 for Microsoft NT 4.0 Server Terminal Server Edition, Citrix MetaFrame 1.8 for Microsoft Windows 2000, Citrix MetaFrame 1.8 for Microsoft NT 4.0 Server Terminal Server Edition

This document provides some known issues and their workarounds.

Important: Microsoft Service Pack 4 for Windows 2000 affects slow logons on both the MetaFrame XP and MetaFrame 1.8 platforms. MetaFrame Service Pack Levels do not affect the issue. The issue introduced by Microsoft Service Pack 4 for Windows 2000 has been addressed with patch 824309.

Troubleshooting Steps

Note: Perform Steps 1 through 3 with the same user account.

1. Log on from the Terminal Server console. In a load balanced environment, it may be necessary to log on to multiple Terminal Servers.

2. From a workstation on the LAN, log on to the Terminal Server with an RDP or ICA desktop session. Again, in a load balanced environment, it may be necessary to log on to multiple Terminal Servers.

3. If applicable, from a workstation on the WAN, log on to the Terminal Server with an RDP or ICA desktop session. Again, in a load balanced environment, it may be necessary to log on to multiple Terminal Servers.

Important: Steps 1 through 3 will give you a good idea as to whether or not the logon issue is strictly related to MetaFrame or is more likely a profile, logon script, network, or other user environment issue.

4. For profile issues, remove any references to a profile path from the Terminal Server and/or user profile path within User Manager for Domains, Active Directory users and computers, or Computer Management. Alternatively, create a local account directly on the Terminal Server to ensure the profile is being loaded directly from the server. Retest the logon time.

Note: New user accounts, accounts without a local profile, and anonymous accounts need to generate a local profile upon logon. The creation of the original profile may take time. It may be necessary to log on a second time when troubleshooting a profile issue. See Microsoft Web site to further troubleshoot profile issues.

5. For logon script issues, remove any references to a logon script within User Manager for Domains, Active Directory users and computers, Computer Management, or any sort of computer or group policy. Creating a local account directly on the Terminal Server and testing may be worth the time. If the Novell Client is installed on the Terminal Server, attempt to do a “Workstation Only” logon. Retest the logon time. If a logon script is the issue, it may be necessary to REM (comment out) or input pause statements throughout each section of the logon script. This will help troubleshoot what resource(s) in the logon script are slowing down the logon process.

6. Network issues, such as Font Searching May Cause Slow Logins on Terminal Server are often difficult to troubleshoot and find. Network monitors/sniffers and other third party utilities such as regmon and filemon from www.sysinternals.com can be used for these issues. The issue described was resolved by the following:

In some cases, the logon process on a Terminal Server may be very slow due to an application searching for fonts. Applications that may cause this problem include NWScript.exe and Lotus CC:Mail.

During the logon process, users can encounter a black screen for one to 20 minutes before the logon finally completes. The effect is magnified as the bandwidth is reduced; dial-in users experience the problem much more severely than LAN users.

Network traces on such systems revealed that a process running on the Terminal Server is searching for fonts by name during the logon process and not finding them. Performing the following steps may succeed as a solution:

A. In the system Control Panel, click the Environment tab.

B. In the system variables section, click the variable Path.

C. Add the following to the end of the string in the Value field at the bottom of the panel:

;%SystemRoot%\Fonts

D. Click Set. Your changes take effect immediately.

7. The ICA Clients Bitmap Cache directory has an excessive amount of files stored in it.

Delete the files in the Bitmap Cache directory for the ICA Client that you are using. For details about how to perform this function, see the following sections in the respective ICA Client Administrator’s Guides:

ICA Client Administrator’s Guide
Section Title

Win32
Configuring Bitmap Caching

Win16, DOS, Macintosh
Configuring Disk Caching

OS/2
Persistent Cache Settings

Java, UNIX
Disk Cache

The ICA Client Administrator’s Guides are in Document ID [Document Not Found].

8. Printer autocreation of Novell print queues affects logon time.

User workstations, FAT clients, defined with Novell print queues may experience a logon delay from three to six minutes when autocreating printers. The issue is more prevalent over slower links, such as a RAS dial-up.

This delay could be a result of having multiple redirectors installed. See Microsoft TechNet article Q171386 and Novell Client 4.83 Support Pack 1 TID 10062237 for more details.

9. Slow logon encountered when using the ICA Win32 Client on a Windows 2000 Server.

Prior to ICA Client build 6.00.963, logons attempted to write to a licensing key on the client device. This caused a delay while the time-out occurred. However, that issue is resolved with the newest client, 6.00.963. Verify that you are running this version or greater.

Users may experience slow logons from Windows 2000 Professional workstations when using the ICA Win32 Web Client Version 6.20.985. The issue may be related to the permissions on the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft \MSLicensing registry key. For the ICA Win32 Client to function properly, the user requires Full permission on this registry key.

Some other symptoms that are indicative of this issue are as follows:

• Logons using the full ICA Win32 Program Neighborhood Client are not affected

• Logons using the ICA Win32 Web Client on other workstation platforms (Windows 95, Windows 98, and so on) are not affected

• Local workstation administrator and power users are not affected

10. If drive A is being queried, try disabling client drive mapping. If logon performance improves as a result of client drives not mapping during logon, see Troubleshooting Various Client Drive Mapping Issues.

Note: This issue appears only with Windows 2000 clients.

11. McAfee Virus Scan has been found to cause the
Windows 2000 client to perform very poorly. Other manufacturers’ antivirus products could cause similar problems. If an antivirus product is running on the client device, disable it and retest the connection to the MetaFrame server.

12. If an older client version is faster than a newer version, it may be related to a new or altered client feature. It may be necessary to disable and then re-enable the new features to troubleshoot the issue.

13. Check the session for a possible hung process. Check with the vendor of the process to further troubleshoot the issue.

14. Check the server for a hung process or processes utilizing high CPU during the logon attempt. Again, check with the vendor of the process to further troubleshoot the issue. Example: TID 10072604