Windows XP stuck on "Welcome" screen. HELP!

[SuperShick]

last night i was playing around with dos and i was jusing the net commands and print commands. my computer has always been running fine and when i turned it off last night it was fine too. my specs are:

athlon xp thoroughbred 1800+
asus a7v333 with latest bios
slk-800 HS
52cfm fan from svc
samsung pc2700 256MB

I just noticed that when i booted my computer up this morning my computer took exceptionally long in booting up. the startup from the asus background took exceptionally long. when the computer finally booted up (i don't use a password to logon to windows) it just stuck at that welcome screen for approximately 15sec with the mouse cursor there in the center of the screen. No activity was going on with my HDs. I thought my computer had frozen but finally the computer booted up normally with asus probe loading and AIM loading, etc. The computer is still normal except that part where it gets stuck at the "welcome" screen. It kinda annoys me because last night it was perfectly fine. I wouldn't know if it were fine last night cuz i didn't get a chance to reboot. but i checked "msconfig" and i took off some programs that were supposed to be in the startup tab. basically i did everything possible to see if during that welcome screen if windows was loading something in the background, but nothing is loading. i need to fix this problem cuz it's bothering me right now. u know how it is.....=) please help me out someone and i'll greatly appreciate it. i don't want to have to RE-format my HD again. it only bothers me cuz my computer boots up in about 15 sec so now it's slower and i'm pissed. thanx guys!

SuperShick

 

[cleverhandle]

Check out your networking connections, NIC, and similar. Sounds like maybe it's trying to establish a connection to a non-existent resource and is timing out.

 

[SuperShick]

now how should i check for that? i don't quite understand what you suggest for me to do cuz it's impossible that there's a time out when one minute it's fine and then suddenly something like this happens. it's so odd. has anyone had this problem before?

 

[prosaic]

Well, you said that

last night i was playing around with dos and i was jusing the net commands and print commands

-- so it's not like the system was fine one moment and then wasn't fine the next moment with no possible explanation. You need to go through your networking configuration, as was said before. You may have changed something. I'll give you an example. Next door neighbor has a Windows XP notebook she uses on a domain at work and on a peer-2-peer network at home. She has to use DHCP at work but wishes to use a static IP assignment for the unit at home. This is easy enough to arrange by setting up her NIC to use DHCP but to fall back on an alternate static IP configuration in the settings dialog for the network connection. But she pays a price in increased boot time when she's home because she has to wait for the DHCP connection to time out before the static IP gets assigned on the home network. So, making a minor change in network configuration (even if you're not connected to a network) can result in an increase in boot time. Perhaps you made such a change when you were fiddling around at the CMD prompt (which isn't DOS, BTW). Given the very limited amount of information you've provided about the system's configuration and history the suggestion to check your network configuration is spot on.

- prosaic

 

[SuperShick]

i shouldn't have made any changes really tho. i was just using net view, net use, net print, print, nbtstat...that's pretty much it. i don't understand how i could have changed anything. plus, i'm using a static IP configuration right now and i never have ever used a DHCP configuration. is there any other possibility that it could be doing? i don't know how to check specifically. is there anyway for me to check what the hell it's doing in the background at that "welcome" screen? my guess was that since i did that print command in CMD, the computer kept wanting to print maybe? just a guess tho. thanx for the help tho prosaic. haha, i got mixed up with dos, my bad =)

SuperShick

 

[prosaic]

Hmmm. Well, I guess you could use Bootvis.exe as a tool to show you what the holdup is. If you're not used to using it I suggest getting the associated reading materials from that site and going over them carefully. I'm not sure why, but a few people seem to wind up with bootvis.exe running continuously in the background. That will whack your hard drive space and make a system unbearably slow. But it is a good way of gathering data about the order and efficacy with which the OS loads processes at startup time. That will show you WHAT is slow in initializing, but that won't necessarily tell you WHY that item is slow in initializing.

Did you go through all of the levels of the Properties dialog for your network connection(s) to see if anything had been borked? How about capturing the results of ipconfig /all and posting those results here? If your networking is at fault for some reason you might be able to get some evidence by using that command (at the CMD prompt) at least a couple of times right after you're first able to use the desktop. If you're not familiar with the redirection feature of the CMD line just type

ipconfig /all >> c:\ipconfig.txt

and hit the Enter key to run the command the first time, then just hit the F3 key and hit Enter to run it subsequent times. You won't see any output at the prompt because the output will be redirected to the ipconfig.txt text file in the root directory. You use the ">>" instead of a single ">" because you want the additional instances of ipconfig to be appended to the file. Make sure you include one final instance after everything has finished loading and the desktop is dead silent. This is kind of a hokey approach, but it might tell us something.

Right now that's about all I can think of to suggest. If you're certain that you didn't implement any permanent networking configuration changes from the CMD line then suspicion just might fall upon the print spooler. Borked or corrupted or misconfigured print spoolers can bring any system to its knees. Have you looked in Task Manager to see if any processes are eating CPU time immediately after a reboot?

- prosaic

 

[SuperShick]

i thought it might have been the print spooler also so i just used the command "net stop spooler". i tried rebooting and it didn't work still. the computer just stalls at the "welcome" screen still. the thing is the computer is still fast as hell after the welcome screen. the windows sound scheme still plays and everything. nothing lags except at that specific point at that welcome screen for about 15sec. it's really getting to me now cuz i can't figure this stuff out. i did that ipconfig /all >> c:\windows\ipconfig.txt thing also. i opened the file as well and this is what it says, basically just a list of what my IPs are, unless i did what u said wrong prosaic:

Windows IP Configuration



Host Name . . . . . . . . . . . . : supershick

Primary Dns Suffix . . . . . . . :

Node Type . . . . . . . . . . . . : Unknown

IP Routing Enabled. . . . . . . . : No

WINS Proxy Enabled. . . . . . . . : No



Ethernet adapter Local Area Connection:



Connection-specific DNS Suffix . :

Description . . . . . . . . . . . : Realtek RTL8139 Family PCI Fast Ethernet NIC

Physical Address. . . . . . . . . : 00-05-5D-2D-7D-B9

Dhcp Enabled. . . . . . . . . . . : No

IP Address. . . . . . . . . . . . : 66.58.103.74

Subnet Mask . . . . . . . . . . . : 255.255.255.248

Default Gateway . . . . . . . . . : 66.58.103.73

DNS Servers . . . . . . . . . . . : 198.6.1.5

198.6.1.4

it just repeats that a bit cuz u told me to do it subsequently. i think i might be doing it wrong cuz i've never done this process before. but if i am, let me know what i should do then. thanx for your hlep prosaic. laterz

SuperShick

 

[prosaic]

Nope, you didn't do anything wrong with ipconfig /all. I just wanted to see if you were starting 0.0.0.0 and then getting an assignment or just what was happening. But what I see is something quite different from anything I would have expected. I see that you have a public IP address. Is that right? Your combination of settings as shown in that output text file don't make a bit of sense to me. Just how are you hooked up there? I was figuring that you were sitting behind a router on a home LAN. Had I known that you had a public IP I would never have suggested that you post it here on the forum. I'm sorry about that.

Are those DNS servers and the gateway and the IP addy what your ISP told you to use? Just what exactly is your situation?

- prosaic

 

[SuperShick]

yeah, those numbers are exactly what my ISP told me to use. We have DSL here and i am behind a router. I have 4 other roommates and we each have our own IPs like mine, cept that each IP is higher in the last number so we have that last number from 74-78. so yeah, i don't even know what the issue is behind this networking stuff. all i'm looking for is a solution to why my computer stalls at that welcome screen. i highly doubt it's anything with my network cuz it's never given me any problems. so i still don't know what to do.


SuperShick

 

[prosaic]

Okay, that's good. I was afraid that you might just be experimenting with numbers. (Hey, we're all tempted to dork with stuff now and then!) Since those are assigned to you by an ISP I'd say that you're probably correct when you say that this isn't a networking issue. The output from ipconfig /all shows that you have IPs assigned for everything you need, assuming that all of the numbers are correct, and DHCP is not enabled so your system isn't sitting around waiting for a DHCP timeout.

But knowing that you are assigned public IPs makes me want to suggest to you that using simple NAT without a real firewall may not be such a great idea. I suggest biting the bullet and dealing with the complexities of a proper firewall and proceeding cautiously and conservatively. I'd make that an especially strong recommendation if any of you guys has important data on a system or if the systems' continued proper functioning is critical to you in any way. If it's all toys then, perhaps, the need may not be so clear cut -- as long as you monitor what's going on with your systems and don't allow them to be a menace to other users out on the Internet if those machines should get compromised.

Getting back to your delay problem, I think you're probably going to need to do the bootvis thing to get the help you need to fix the delay that's annoying you. Bootvis has the ability to optimize the loading and initializing of your drivers and services at boot time, so it may not be necessary for you to actually diagnose anything. Just run the analysis. It's best to have it go through at least three boots to gather its data. It has been suggested to me that some systems with particularly flakey load sequences require perhaps as many as seven boots for this purpose. After collecting the data you can analyze it to see if there might be a particularly problematic driver that takes a lot of time to initialize. If there is you may be able to fix the issue by upgrading the driver. But long boot times may not always be caused by a bad driver. lt just may be that the load order is screwy for some reason. So, after the analysis has been made you can tell bootvis to attempt to optimize the boot process. I've seen the automatic optimization cause anything from negligible to tremendous improvement in boot times.

If you decide to use bootvis be sure you allow yourself plenty of time for the analysis and optimization session. Read the docs carefully, and prepare for the session. You should not interrupt the utility while it's doing its job. There are times on some systems when it appears that the process has stopped and that you should go about your business. Remember that bootvis will always come back to you after an analysis or optimization with a report. Wait for that report. Do not go about business as usual until you get the report.

Or you could just cultivate patience. I'm a middle-aged guy and don't mind comtemplating the passage of time for a few seconds.

- prosaic

 

[Cabana]

Alt-tab when you get the welcome screen. It might be asking for a new password. Mine does the same thing.

 

[SuperShick]

i did what u said cabana and i got two things....windows logon and something about network connections. oh, and prosaic i got bootvis and i ran it with 3 reboots and i'm looking at the graphs and the logon+service takes about 17 damn seconds. that's butt @$$ long and i don't understand what's going on. but what i said to cabana, there are two tasks running at that welcome screen and it was windows logon and this network connection. maybe your hunch was right prosaic. how can i fix this problem? i wish i could show u the tables and graphs from bootvis. maybe i could send them to u. whateverz, well thanx for the advice guys! =)

SuperShick

 

[Cabana]

Glad I could help in some way. Good luck!

 

[prosaic]

Originally posted by: SuperShick
i did what u said cabana and i got two things....windows logon and something about network connections. oh, and prosaic i got bootvis and i ran it with 3 reboots and i'm looking at the graphs and the logon+service takes about 17 damn seconds. that's butt @$$ long and i don't understand what's going on. but what i said to cabana, there are two tasks running at that welcome screen and it was windows logon and this network connection. maybe your hunch was right prosaic. how can i fix this problem? i wish i could show u the tables and graphs from bootvis. maybe i could send them to u. whateverz, well thanx for the advice guys!

Well, the logon service could be slower to load than it should be for two reasons that I know of -- 1. a network configuration / response time issue, or 2. a network interface device (NIC) load time issue. Unfortunately, without being there to actually see everything interact, I'm not sure I know how to help you track down the culprit. I'll try to give you some suggestions that might help you nail it down.

If, and only if, the other machines that are connecting are not experiencing the same sort of delay in logon service loading then I'd say that you can eliminate the first possibility. If your machine has a network configuration identical to those of other boxes on the same network in all respects except actual local IP addy, and the other systems don't experience the delay and yours does -- then it's a problem with your own machine or with its physical connection to the network.

Hardware side: I wouldn't expect a simple infrastructure problem (hub or switch port, cable, NIC connector) to result in such consistent results, but it might. A flakey NIC, on the other hand, can go through phases of very consistent partial malfunction. And it can be hard to tell if flakey behavior by a NIC is caused by the NIC itself or by its driver. This is especially true in Windows XP where a bad driver can look EXACTLY like bad hardware -- except for the smoke.

Configuration side: This can be complicated because what appears to be a driver issue may not be a driver issue at all. I have seen firewall software and even AV software cause a NIC driver, and therefore the NIC, to be slow to respond. So you can show a good initiallization time for your NIC driver and still be experiencing a problem with that driver once the firewall and / or AV pseudo-drivers and services get loaded. The only way to figure this out is by process of elimination. I can tell you right off the bat that I have seen several cards (primarily Realtek) that don't work well with ZoneAlarm. You actually need to change one thing at a time and reboot a few times after each change to test for the effect. With AV and firewall software it is not enough to just turn them off (unless you've been really thorough about it). I suggest uninstalling anything that might grab the NIC then rebooting to see if the problem is resolved. If it isn't, then you might try running bootvis and having it perform a boot optimization. Test again. If your speed has improved, then add back whatever you were running with respect to software firewall and AV (ONE at a time with testing after each) to see how well your NIC and its drivers and those utilities play with each other. If, however, reducing everything to the simplest level does not result in improvement, and boot optimization likewise does nothing for you, then you need to consider changing the NIC driver if that's possible. Or you might try deleting the NIC from DM, shutting down, removing the NIC physically from the system, installing a new NIC, and testing that to see if you get an improvement.

If you narrow the issue down to AV or firewall software (Don't forget the built-in ICF, too, though I've NEVER seen that one slow down a system.), then you can try alternatives. In the case of the firewall an external solution is always preferrable -- if it is fiscally feasible. In the case of AV, I wouldn't recommend having a system that isn't protected locally. Some of those things are real hogs. I have found Norton and McAfee to be particularly troublesome on some systems. I don't use them myself so don't know whether this is the fault of the software or the way it has been loaded and configured on those machines. My observation may have more to do with the fact that you have a wider range of people using those particular AV products, therefore more ingenues, because of their market visibility.

I hope I'm not rambling too much here. Haven't had enough coffee, cats are messing with me, wife is talking to me, sunlight is hitting me smack in the eyes, and I'm rushing because I've got a ton of stuff to do today.

One more point. I'm not questioning your desire to get the system working up to speed, especially if you have seen a sudden change for the worse. I can be pretty obsessive about such stuff, too. But 17 seconds isn't a real killer, and, as long as it isn't accompanied by stability issues and error conditions on the machine, you might consider just tolerating it. You're not having to reboot often with this system are you? Is there some sort of other performance or functional issue with it?

- prosaic

 

[SuperShick]

yeah i know it's a little "anal" for the boot time but hey, it's not normal =P but yeah, i did what cabana said and i did alt+tab and there were two things running, 1.) windows logon and 2.) restoring network connections. i don't know if that restoring network connections is really supposed to be there but one of those two applications MIGHT be taking the super long time. maybe you're right the whole time it's something with the NIC or network?

SuperShick

 

[prosaic]

Well, from the way you described what you did from the CMD line I wouldn't expect this to be the case. I don't use the Welcome Screen, so I'm not sure what you should see there. If I get a wee bit of time later on I'll try and experiment or two. Now that you mention that there may be a hold-up in re-establishing network connections you've got me wondering if you mapped a drive (either from the CMD line or from within Windows Explorer) and that a persistent connection was set up. If you set up a persistent connection by mapping a drive letter to a directory out there on your network, or if you create a persistent connection by redirecting a port to a network printer, then the system will try to find that entity on the network every time you boot. Furthermore, if the entity is not available, either because it is turned of or because it never existed in the first place, that will definitely slow down your boot process. The system will wait for the attempt to establish the network connection to time out. And you wouldn't see any slowdown of NIC drive initialization at all. The NIC would be doing its job correctly, but the system still wouldn't be able to find what it was looking for. Is there a possibility that this is what happened?

You can check to see if you have any network printers set up by looking in your Printers and Faxes dialog and examining the properties of the entries. In Windows XP on a peer-to-peer LAN a printer attached to another computer is not normally referred to as a network printer. It should be designated, normally, as a local printer. Its port will be shown as a virtual USB, Serial, or Parallel port. If you are showing a printer that is, instead, located at \\some_other_computer\printer or at http://some_site/whatever then that could be the problem. Your network connections manager will be awaiting a response that may not or will not be forthcoming

You can check to see if you've mapped a drive by opening Windows Explorer and looking to see if you show any drives with red Xs next to them or by going to the Tools menu and selecting Disconnect Network Drive. If you get anything other than a pop-up that says that you have no drives mapped, then you have mapped drives. You should be able to figure out what to do from there. Again, if your computer is looking for a directory on another machine to map to a drive letter and that other machine is not available for any reason, then it will take longer for the boot process to complete.

Did you try any of the other stuff I suggested?

I hope you'll turn something up.

- prosaic