I'm in the middle of upgrading our servers to 2008. Our first server, brand new hardware, HP DL-320. I'm making this server a domain controller and will be retiring one of our 2003 domain controllers and upgrading the other to 2008. I have a fresh install of 2008 standard 64 bit. As soon as I make this new server a domain controller with ADNS and DNS it takes 20 minutes for it to reboot. It goes through post fine, then gets to the green loading bar, sits there about 5 minutes and then goes to a black screen with a mouse cursor for 15 minutes or so before finally bringing up the ctrl-alt-delete screen.Everything I've read would seem to indicate a misconfigured DNS but as far as I can tell, it DNS is configured properly, I can replicate from server to server. I have dynamic DNS updates configured. I have the new server pointing to itself for DNS and no alternative dns entry. I'm just not sure what is causing this 20 minute boot time.Any suggestions?

Hi ncmir, According to your description, it seems that you have other Windows Server 2003 DCs in the environment, could you please make the DNS point to the existing Windows server 2003 DC and the alternative DNS point itself on the NIC properties of the new DC? You may refer to: Domain Controller boots up slowly when pointing to itself as the only DNS server http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;945765 Based on my experience, QoS packet scheduler maybe cause the kind of issue, please refer to the steps to uninstall "QoS packet scheduler" on the new Windows Server 2008 DC to test if it works. Network and Sharing Center -> Manager Network connections -> NIC properties -> select "QoS packet scheduler" -> Uninstall Meanwhile, please boot the DC with clean boot mode to test if the issue still exists. 1. Click "Start", go to "Run", and type "msconfig" in the open box to start the System Configuration Utility. 2. Click the "Services" tab, check the "Hide All Microsoft Services" box and click Disable All (if it is not gray). 3. Click the "Startup" tab, click "Disable All" and click "OK". 4. Restart your computer. When the "System Configuration Utility" window appears, please check the box and click "OK". If the issue still continues, please follow the steps to obtain detailed troubleshooting information for troubleshooting Collect gpsvc.log and Winlogon.log on Windows Server 2008 1. Please obtain detailed troubleshooting information of processing group policy log (gpsvc.log): a. Click Start, type "Regedit" in the Start Search box, and press Enter. b. In the Registry Editor, expand HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion c. Under that, create a new Key called "Diagnostics" d. Under that key, create a DWORD value "GPSvcDebugLevel" and set the value as 0x30002 (hexadecimal) e. In Command Prompt, type "gpupdate /force" to refresh GPO. f. After that, please collect gpsvc.log which is located in %systemroot%\Debug\Usermode 2. Please do as following steps on these problematic computer to enable "winlogon.log" as the delay occurs during computer startup: a. Start Registry Editor (Regedit.exe) b. Locate and click the following key in the registry: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon\GPExtensions\{827D319E-6EAC-11D2-A4EA-00C04F79F83A}. Please note: The above registry key is one path; it has been wrapped for readability. c. Edit the following registry value: Value name: ExtensionDebugLevel Data type: DWORD Value data: 2 d. Quit Registry Editor e. Reboot the computer The Winlogon.log file is created in the folder %systermroot% \Security\Logs You may send the logs to tfwst@microsoft.com. Hope it helps.David Shen - MSFT

Hi, Thanks for the reply. Based on the research on the log files that you sent me, I found it was normal to have applied Group Policy settings, which should be not problem at this side. Personally, I suspect the long boot time issue is because of the reason that the DC cannot be located properly. 1. Please check if the other DCs are running currently, please ensure it is working to test the problem again. 2. When you logon the new DC, please ping the other DC in the command line, also you may tracert the other DC by running Tracert <otherDCsname> 3. Meanwhile, please Test the new DC within Clean Boot, Safe Mode with network and Safe Mode. Step 1: Perform a Clean Boot a. Click "Start", go to "Run", and type "msconfig" in the open box to start the System Configuration Utility. b. Click the "Services" tab, check the "Hide All Microsoft Services" box and click Disable All (if it is not gray). c. Click the "Startup" tab, click "Disable All" and click "OK". d.Restart your computer. When the "System Configuration Utility" window appears, please check the box and click "OK". Step 2: Reboot to Safe Mode a. Restart your computer and start pressing the F8 key on your keyboard. On a computer that is configured for booting to multiple Operating Systems, you can press the F8 key when you see the boot menu. b. When the Windows Advanced Options menu appears, select Safe Mode, and then press Enter. c. Log onto Windows by using the Administrator account or any user account with the Administrator privileges. Please note: In Safe Mode, your system display and desktop will look and perform differently than in Normal Mode. Step 3. Reboot to Safe Mode with Networking a. Restart your computer and start pressing the F8 key on your keyboard. b. You can select the "Safe Mode with Networking" when you see Advance Boot Options menu. c. Logon to Windows by using the Administrator account or any user account with the Administrator privileges. Please note: In Safe Mode with Networking, your system display and desktop will look and perform differently than in Normal Mode. 4. Also, please check if you have enable Hyper-V on the new DC, if so, please check if the network card is HP NIC. If so, we need to remove the HP NIC drive, which maybe cause the issue. Hope it helps.David Shen - MSFT