If you are using a domain environment with roaming profiles or home directories that are located on remote machines (servers) and experience slow log-on process this is probably because Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 are configured not to detect to which Windows Domain Controller they belong to by default.
Here’s how to speed up the domain logon process on Windows 7 machine. (Probably will apply to Windows XP too).
Open group policy management (gpedit.msc) and navigate to the following section:
Computer Configuration | Administrative Templates | System | User Profiles
In the right pane double click ‘set the maximum wait time for the network if a user has a roaming user profile or remote home directory’ GP setting.
In the ‘Wait for network for maximum (seconds) enter 0 and click Enable radio button.
Your slow domain logon issues should be gone now.
Comments are welcome.