Win2k loading very slowly

[Yohhan]

As of a couple days ago, my win2k machine has been running very slowly. It takes about 30 minutes and over to start up. The wait usually occurs after I log in.

How can I check what programs are loading on startup? Is there an equivalent to "msconfig" on win2k? Does anyone have any other suggestions? I'm not really sure where to begin trying to fix this. Would really appreciate any help, as it's a struggle just to get the computer turned on.

 

[onelin]

If you can find it, bootvis should show you what's taking 30 minutes. I used to have a 1-5 minute wait (whatever it was, it was very noticeable) and it turned out to be windows waiting for an IDE device that wasn't there, disabling the IDE channel that wasn't in use fixed the problem.

 

[Disorganise]

I thought bootvis was an XP only thing??

sysedit will bring up the system.ini etc for you to look at but it probably won't help much.

Is this machine standalone or part of a domain? Domain machines will have really bad logon experiences if DNS is not working properly, so look there.

Try safe mode too (Press F5 at boot time to get menu) - this will cause many services to not start, and if login is quick you can check the which services are set to automatic but not running and start disabling the one by one, rebooting to normal mode and login etc, until you find which service is causing the delay.

Also check the event logs for clues. The event logs start fairly early so should give an idea of what's going on just before you log in and during the login process.

 

[Yohhan]

Thanks. Where can I find bootvis?

 

[Yohhan]

And yes, it's part of a domain. Not standalone.

 

[onelin]

oh, I guess it is...plus microsoft did discontinue it. It's easy to find with a google, but I guess I can't recommend trying it on 2000.

Disorganise has you covered, though... I have nothing to add as I've never run 2k on a personal system.

 

[Smilin]

msconfig runs on 2000, it's just not included by default. You can copy it from another box.

Where in your startup is the delay coming? First black splashscreen, Second blue splashscree, starting networking etc.

 

[Disorganise]

Since you confirmed it's a domain member, check DNS!

1st, drop a command prompt and type nslookup. if the result does not resolve to a name then the DNS servers you configured in TCP properties (be it manually or DHCP) aren't working

And make sure the DNS server isn't your ISP's! I did that once and had slow logins....turned out my PC was trying to register with my ISP DNS (which was obviously being disallowed) and had to wait for it to timeout. Since their DNS forwards to others, the timeout process took a while before it did a local broadcast and registered happily on my DC. Setting DNS to my DC fixed it, and then having the DC's DNS forward to the ISP DNS server allows Internet lookups.

Check if anything has recently changed - new DHCP server (did all values get copied over), new domain suffix, change of DNS server, change of default gateway etc etc

 

[Smilin]

I didn't see that domain part.

If it's a member server the problem may still lie elsewhere. If it's a *domain controller* and you have fvcked up dns then you'll get the mother of all boot times. A quick check is to boot with all network cables unplugged and see if it's noticeably faster.