We ran into slow user profile creation in Windows 7 a few years ago. We found a variety of causes of slowdown on login/profile creation that we attempted to address, including:
1. Spinning hard drives were just slower, period, than SSDs. We replaced the vast majority of HDDs on the PAWS.
2. The cloning process from a master clone could affect the speed of the clone. We changed software as a result.
3. Symantec Endpoint Protection slows file access. It also would try to scan the entire HD and all user profiles constantly, and try to send millions of files to Symantec for analysis, and not delete them. 
4. Windows Search was enabled and constantly indexing user profiles. We removed it from the PAWS.
5. Windows startup sound actually added time in a login because it would wait until the audio service was ready.
6. Printer drivers per-user would have to download 70MB. By preinstalling the drivers on the PAWS with prndrvr.vbs, only a new printer creation was needed per user.


-----Original Message-----
From: Code for Libraries [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Will Martin
Sent: Thursday, March 19, 2015 2:31 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: [CODE4LIB] Deep Freeze + PaperCut + Windows profiles

In our computer labs, we currently use Deep Freeze.[1] It lets us grant our users full administrative rights, without worrying about malware, viruses, and such, because any changes the user makes are wiped out when they log off.

A couple of years ago, the campus as a whole switched to PaperCut for managing print jobs.[2] This maintains separate print queues for each student, so that when they swipe their student card at the print release station, they see only their own print jobs.  Convenient!  At least compared to Pharos, the old system.

Unfortunately, there's a nasty side-effect, which is that it takes a loooooong time to log into the lab computers.  Generally 5-6 minutes, sometimes as much as 10.  What's happening is:

1) A student logs in with their Active Directory credentials
2) The computer checks for a user profile and doesn't find one
3) The computer creates a new windows profile for the student (slooow!)
4) When they log off, Deep Freeze wipes out the profile.

The fact that the computer has to download, install, and configure the PaperCut print drivers makes Step 3 even slower.  They're per-user.  
They're baked into the user profile, so they get created fresh every time and wiped out again afterwards.

As a recent comment on Yik-Yak put it: "Patience is waiting for the library computers to log you on."

We're currently on Windows 8 (yuck), but the problem occurred with 7 as well.

We've talked about removing Deep Freeze and simply placing the computers on restricted accounts with no permissions to install software, etc.  
That would *partially* address it, because profiles would no longer be wiped out.  As long as students went to the same computer over and over, they'd only be faced with a long logon the first time.  But, of course, it's a lab and there's no guarantee you can get the same computer all the time, so that's a poor solution at best.



[1] http://www.faronics.com/products/deep-freeze/enterprise/
[2] http://www.papercut.com/