Slow User Switching
Posted by admin on Jan 23rd, 2007
Please help. The exact same PC used to have Windows XP Pro, and FUS was very fast. Now that I've upgraded to Vista, FUS takes about 40 seconds just to get to the account selection page. Then another 10 seconds to switch to the already logged in account.I've looked at the Performance/Reliability logs, but nothing jumps out. How can I figure out what's taking so long? I've tried uninstalling all extraneous services, and disabled most hardware devices, but no luck.My machine is a Pentium 4, dual core, 3.2GHz with 1GB RAM, with a 4.3 Windows Experience Index. I'm running Vista Home Premium, 32bit.Please, please help. Cheers, Dan.
Jan 24th, 2007 at 06:55 am
"Dan Bourque" <Dan Bourque@discussions.microsoft.com> Hi Dan,You might experience delays if there are open applications in the account you are switching from. This is true in Windows XP as well but given Vista's appetite for RAM it may be the reason why it is more noticeable. Vista uses at least 30% of RAM just to run itself. With another user logging in, demands for resources will increase. Additionally Vista must maintain open programs in memory in case the logged off user wants to log back in.Your machine specs are quite capable but increasing the RAM will give you a better all around performance.I'd leave the services and hardware devices alone. E Jacob
Jan 28th, 2007 at 05:53 am
Interesting I've always used (and blessed) FUS in XP for its simplicity and speed when my wife comes along and wants to check her email or bank account while I'm doing something else <g>I've set up VISTA the same way so far as users are concerned but not set up her account or switched much to it yet.I get the impression that the two FUS's are differently set up, perhaps partly due to our friend UAC? Now when I do WINKEY + L to switch users, I first of all get a screen up saying User account locked and have to click on a Switch user button.When I do that the first thing I get is a blackout with my monitor telling me it has no signal and then I get the choice of User accounts. I select my wife's account and it goes through a long logon procedure for her, much longer than XP and then it brings up her desktop.If she is already logged on then it is quicker to switch from my account to hers as one might expect but the whole procedure is much more complicated and longwinded than before.
Jan 29th, 2007 at 09:04 am
I'll probably take your advice and add more RAM, but I doubt it will help. For the purpose of my tests, I intentionally had no applications running at all, neither in the system tray, services, nor even the Gadgets panel, and was switching to an account that was already logged in. As a matter of fact, it takes about 4050 seconds to just FUS to the very same account I just came from.Does anyone know if there's a way to monitor each process's CPU usage during this process? The Task Manager shows me this information in realtime, but I need to see each the information as it changes over time instead. I suppose I could write my own, but does this already exist? The Perfoemance/Reliability monitors don't seem to allow me to add existing processes, just existing categories of metrics.I'm open for suggestions. Much appreciated. Dan."E Jacob" wrote:
Jan 30th, 2007 at 01:39 pm
Incidentally, I've turned off the annoying UAC, so that's out of the picture. When I use the WinKey + L, it gets me to the "User Account Locked" page fairly quickly, but when I click on the "Switch User" button, that's when it takes the 4050 seconds to switch.Cheers, Dan. "Hugh Wyn Griffith" wrote:
Feb 3rd, 2007 at 03:19 pm
In article , Dan Bourque wrote: I'll check that out. But from memory, the total time to switch with WINKEY + L was of that order.
Feb 6th, 2007 at 07:32 am
I took your advice, and upgraded to 2GB of RAM, and it had no effect. :( I'll keep the extra memory anyhow, since I do a lot of video editing and that will help.Does anyone else have any suggestions/comments/personal experiences related to this?Cheers, Dan. "E Jacob" wrote:
Feb 10th, 2007 at 11:39 pm
This is exatly what I was searching the forum for; to see if there was a way to bypass the Account locked screen when using the Win+L shortcut and get straight to the Switch User screen, as was the case in XP. It seems like a small thing, but the twostep process really gets annoying when you have to switch users frequently. In the Start menu there is an option for Lock (which takes you to the Account locked screen) and a seperate option for Switch User (which takes you straight to the Switch User screen) so I would imagine there must be some way to set up a shortcut for that command if you just knew what was running when you clicked "Switch Users". Hopefully someone can figure it out."Hugh Wyn Griffith" wrote:
Feb 15th, 2007 at 09:56 am
There's an interesting article in the Feb PCWorld on some initial trials with VISTA including the effect of RAM with Photoshop and some other applications. Going from 1GB to 2GB did have some effect in Photoshop 5% 10% faster except for a HP laptop where it was 27% faster with 2GB but this had a duo core CPU. pcworld.com/article/id,128305page,1/article.html But not much on the web page above you need the paper copy to see details.I always take these magazine reports with a large grain of salt but they often show up unexpected aspects of our technology.
Feb 16th, 2007 at 04:17 am
I agree, the "account locked" screen is useless and annoying. It seems that the only solution to bypass it is the way mansart describes. The file you are looking for is "tsdiscon.exe" in c:\windows\system32 folder. Unfortunately, you can't assign winkey+L shortcut command for a copy of this file, but any ctrl+altshortcutkey."mansart" wrote:
Feb 17th, 2007 at 02:09 am
Hi Dan,I'm having the same issues as you and others are. It's extremely annoying. It is not 'fast user switch' it is 'slow user switch'. This is what happens:1) Press windows=key + L You are taken to the 'account is locked' screen instead of the userselection screen which is ridiculous and nonuseful. Why doesn't it take you directly to the userselection screen like XP did? 2) Click on 'Switch User' 3) The monitor loses signal and then comes back this takes several seconds. 4) Click on the user that you want to log in as, enter the password. 5) The monitor loses signal and then comes back this takes several seconds. 6) Finally the user is logged in.I really hope, like you, that someone can find a resolution to this very real issue.I'm running 2GB of ram too and don't buy the notion that this is a ramrelated issue. The same exact behavior above occurs when no applications are running. Both users being switchedfrom and switchedto have the same monitor settings (resolution, refresh rate, and color depth)."Dan Bourque" wrote:
Feb 19th, 2007 at 03:58 am
I'm not sure what issues are involved with this, but i get very fast results whether I use the Start/Switch User or WinKey+L, using a similar system as the OP.Start/Switch User is 11 seconds from start to logged on with another account and WinKey+L is 14 seconds.This is with WinMail, IE, Illustrator and several other programs open. Ronnie Vernon Microsoft MVP Windows Shell/User "Jeff Billimek"
Feb 24th, 2007 at 07:20 pm
I'm still trying to figure out what file runs when you click Switch User on the Start menu. I don't have a file called tsdiscon.exe on my Vista Home Premium system (though this file does exist on my XP system). Anyone have a clue?"Michael" wrote:
Feb 26th, 2007 at 02:49 pm
Hi Jeff,I noticed the "monitor losing signal" part of this process as well. Maybe this is the key to the issue? I run dual monitors, and I've noticed that it also repositions all my desktop gadgets from one monitor to the other after restarting, logging off/on or for user switching.I think the problem seems to be Windows switching to a different video mode for the login screen than it uses for the desktop. It's probably doing this for some kind of 'safe mode' compatibility reason, but I'm hoping for a way to allow it to go to the login screen without switching video modes. My gut says this will fix the slow user switching problem as well.Boyd"Jeff Billimek" wrote:
Feb 27th, 2007 at 10:50 am
My understanding is that when Microsoft implemented all of the 3D DirectX9 support for Aero Glass that they moved the graphics driver into user space (rather than kernel space this doesn't mean the graphics driver runs as the user, just that it runs with access to all of the system calls that normal code has access to, rather than the esoteric realm of kernel space, and that it can't stomp on arbitrary memory locations because it's running with certain permissions, access, etc.).This was to improve the reliability of the GUI given that it was going to be running all sorts of hypercomplicated DirectX 3D code for the normal GUI.They also implemented the ability to completely reset the graphics driver on the fly without requiring a reboot. This was done so that if the graphics driver has a bug and crashes, your whole computer doesn't crash.I suspect that when you do Fast User Switching that Vista is completely resetting the graphics driver. This would help ensure better isolation between the various user accounts by ensuring that one can't exploit bugs in the graphics driver to leave malformed data structures that could do things as another user or to read data left behind in the graphics card memory by the other user. I wouldn't be surprised if it completely zerosout all of the RAM on the graphics card, for instance, then reinitializes the graphics card as if the card were booting up, then starts the graphics driver, sets up all the communications, etc.This is all conjecture based on what I've heard and read about Vista. I was hunting around on the web for someone to confirm my hypothesis when I came across this thread.Toby OvodEverett tovodeverett tovodeverett's Profile: forums.techarena.in/member.php?userid=24379 View this thread: forums.techarena.in/showthread.php?t=707169forums.techarena.in