I agree, it sounds profile related.  If you have never customized the
default user profile then all new accounts have to go through all of the
user profile initialization tasks including "active setup" which configures
the desktop, IE, and Media Player.  This slows things down significantly
the first time a new user logs in.  I'd first try to create a custom
default user profile per these instructions:
https://cwiki.apache.org/confluence/display/VCL
/How+to+Configure+the+Windows+Default+User+Profile

It doesn't really matter what you customize.  The process creates a new
copy of the C:\Users\Default directory with settings which have already
been initialized.  New users get this copy and login may be faster.  The
instructions on this page also mention using the Autoruns utility.  It can
be very helpful in finding unnecessary things you can disable during boot
and login such as Windows Mail and anything related to Media Player.

After creating a new default user profile, test it out by creating a test
user, add the user to the administrators group, set the password, then log
in as that user.  You can use the GUI but it's quicker to run the following
commands:

net user tester1 /add
net user tester1 thisismypassword
net localgroup Administrators tester1 /add

If you save the image, don't forget to delete any test users you created
for security.  VCL won't delete them automatically or change the password.

-Andy



On Tue, Jan 21, 2014 at 11:40 AM, Aaron Coburn <[email protected]> wrote:

> I agree, this is very likely due to the issue of copying the default
> profile. I would add that this operation can also use a lot of I/O, so you
> may want to check on any latency issues with the backend storage system.
> Moving to a faster backend could help.
>
> What I have actually done to get around this was to pre-create a user
> account (something like 'vcluser') and then disable it during the image
> capture stage. Then, before a user connects to a reservation, the vcld
> commands don't actually create a new account, they simply enable the hidden
> account and then rename it to match the user's id. I can enable this on an
> image-by-image basis.
>
> This would not work if you expect to use roaming profiles or other
> configuration setting that would require that the default profile actually
> be copied each time.
>
> -Aaron
>
>
> On Jan 21, 2014, at 8:53 AM, Aaron Peeler <[email protected]> wrote:
>
> > This sounds like it is related to the size of the default profile.
> >
> > When the new user logs in for the first time a profile does not exist
> > yet, so the default profile gets copied to the user's profile.
> >
> > I suggest to first look at the default profile and see if there is
> > anything that can be cleaned out.
> >
> > Others on the list may have additional suggestions.
> >
> > Aaron
> >
> >
> >
> > On Tue, Jan 21, 2014 at 12:50 AM, Cameron Seay <[email protected]> wrote:
> >> I am using KVM and Windows  7 images.   For some reason the user images
> take
> >> about 3 minutes to get past the Windows Welcome screen.  When I am in
> >> editing mode for the same image, it takes 10 seconds or less to get
> past the
> >> Welcome screen.  Image load time is fine ( > 1 minute).  We have 4 GB
> of RAM
> >> allocated to the image in question. Once the image loads, performance is
> >> fine.    Any ideas?
> >>
> >>
> >
> >
> >
> > --
> > Aaron Peeler
> > Program Manager
> > Virtual Computing Lab
> > NC State University
> >
> > All electronic mail messages in connection with State business which
> > are sent to or received by this account are subject to the NC Public
> > Records Law and may be disclosed to third parties.
>
>

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