Windows 8.1 machine is slow to login on network because of a public folder that it is scanning

Question

I have a problem with windows 8.1 machines taking a long time to login to the network.  They are on a Domain and there are mapped drives involved.  I have turned off the mapping of the drives one at a time and have found that the problem is the
public folder that has thousands of pictures and audio files on it.  If I don't map the public drive the system logs on very fast if I map the public drive the windows machines will take 45 seconds at 800 mbs pull on the ethernet card to scan then the
system works like normal.  If you try to login through the wireless system forget it.  I have turned off every indexing searching program I can find and cannot get it to stop.  None of the windows 7 machines have this problem so it is something
in the new OS that is causing it.  Please advise???

Answer 1

Trick will be to find the source of the indexing. Even if Search is shown as indexing the content it may be transitive because some apps is calling say WMI to trigger say Windows Search to perform the index.
Stopping services like Windows Search will generally have some negative side-effect that you won't want to live with.
What is the link speed and latency like between the 8.1 client and the public drive?
Are you able to open a support case?
Suggestions:
Verify that the 8.1 install is fully patched (i.e. has all monthly updates installed starting from the ZDP to February 2014 updates.
Collect a WPA trace
The best tool is the Microsoft SBSL SDP available from Microsoft, else using the slow logon syntax in
http://social.technet.microsoft.com/wiki/contents/articles/10128.tools-for-troubleshooting-slow-boots-and-slow-logons-sbsl.aspx
Collect a concurrent NETSH trace during the the XPERF / WPA trace
<do this by running the following command from an Admin-privileged CMD prompt at the point in the SBSL SDP workflow where you chose between slow boot and slow logon>
netsh trace start Scenario=NetConnection capture=yes tracefile=c:\nettrace-logon.etl
logoff and logon
netsh trace stop
Share your data, preferably in the contest of a Microsoft support case.
<do this by running the following command from an Admin-privileged CMD prompt at the point in the SBSL SDP workflow where you chose between slow boot and slow logon>
netsh trace start Scenario=NetConnection capture=yes tracefile=c:\nettrace-logon.etl
logoff and logon
netsh trace stop
Disabling search indexers may be a workaround but typically has some kind of work around that will hurt you long term.