[Slow NAL startup] How to speed up?

Question

We are a school with about 600 pc's running Windows XP + Novell Client
4.91 sp2.
And one of the servers is running Netware 5.1 sp6, Zenworks for Desktops 4
and Zenworks for servers 3.
We have 482 application objects in our tree.
The problem is that after login, Naldesk.exe takes a long time to load.
What is the best thing to do to speed things up?

Answer 1

The 1st thing I would look for are "Force_Run".
It is possible you could have items running in the background that are
delaying the finishing of NAL.
One key here is "Wait on Force Run".
Disabling this setting on your Force Runs may allow NAL to finish loading
while the external processes are still running.
Also, How many "effective" apps are assigned to these users?
By this I mean directly or inherited.
A large number of these can slow down the logon process considerably while
the objects are read and system requirements are evaluated.
(Example - A User who has 400 effective apps even if only 40 show due to
failed system requirements will come up much slower than somebody who is
only assigned 60 with 80 failing due to system requirements.)
Also, on the packet trace suggested by Anders, check to lost packets and
retransmissions. This could be an indication of network problems somewhere
betweeen the server and workstation. I have seen this drastically effect
the startup times.