Monday, December 06, 2004

Two Logins To Install Software

With Windows XP you sometimes see that your Group Policy settings take two reboots or two logins to work. This is because Windows XP operates (by default) in a mode called Fast Logon Optimization. This means that the computer boots and logs in quicker, but it does mean that events that should occur during the computers boot or login will be delayed until the second boot or login.

Examples of events that this effects are software installations via Group Policy and folder redirection (i.e. home folders). During (or usually just after) the first boot/logon XP sets a flag and then during the second boot/logon Windows operates one time only without the Fast Logon enabled.

An example of the two events that appear in the event log (in chronological order) are:

Event Type: Warning
Event Source: Application Management
Event Category: None
Event ID: 108
Date:
Time:

Event Type: Warning
Event Source: Application Management
Event Category: None
Event ID: 101
Date:
Time:

This behaviour can be changed by turning the Fast Logon Optimization off. This can be switched on and off via Group Policy and the following setting:

Computer Configuration
Administrative Templates
System
Logon
Always wait for the network at computer startup and logon

More on Fast Logon Optimization can be found in article 305293 at Microsoft Support.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Thanks for this. You think this information would be more available. It would be ideal for my client to work first time and as such i need this turn off on boot really huh. Thanks anyway. i'll try it now.

Anonymous said...

Thats awesome... Thanks!

Peter said...

Two and half years later this blog entry is still helpful.

Thanks.

Anonymous said...

Great info. Thanks for posting!

Anonymous said...

Very handy - I'd been scratching my head about this for a couple of hours!