Speed Up logins
Turn on the 'Fast Logon Optimization' group policy setting. This allows someone to logon with cached credentials and get a desktop while background events are still occurring.
This feature is enabled by default, but you can disable it by using the following policy: Administrative Templates\System\Logon\Always wait for the network at computer startup and logon.
Two registry keys can be set for improved logon performance.
1: Turn on opportunistic locking on the XP clients
Review http://support.microsoft.com/kb/319440 and set the registry value BufferPolicyReads to 1 on all XP clients.
Note: BufferPolicyReads doesn't exist in Windows 7 (probably not in Vista either) - most likely because the code it was part of has been rewritten completely and the key isn't neccessary anymore.
Registry subkey:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon
Entry: BufferPolicyReads
Type: DWORD
Value: 0x1
Note File Reads will only be buffered when the the
BufferPolicyReads registry entry is created and is set to 1.
2. Review http://support.microsoft.com/kb/834350 and set the registry value InfoCacheLevel to 10 (hex) on all XP clients
Note: InfoCacheLevel also exists in Windows 7 but it defaults to 0x10 (caching for all files) unless specifically set to 0 (Disabled) or 1 (cache only 8.3 names). I.e. no action needed to turn it on in Windows 7 or Windows 2008 R2 - it's on by default there.
Registry Subkey:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\MrxSmb\Parameters
Entry: InfoCacheLevel
Type: DWORD
Value: 0x10