Windows Vista Stuck on Please Wait Screen? + Rant

Well, it's finally happening - Vista is creeping into my Nursing Homes despite my dire warnings of impending irritation. Please people, if you're going to buy Vista, at least buy the Business or Ultimate editions - Home edition is WORTHLESS in a Windows Domain except for being in your own little computing world - don't expect roaming profiles or easy access t network resources.

That said, Vista has apparent troubles in a Windows 2003 domain. After applying Service Pack 1 the Vista machine may seem permanently stuck at Please Wait . . . Apparently the TCP receive window auto tunes itself and mudges things up - I'm not sure what the ingredients in this sausage are, I just know it sucks.

To boot up, turn of your computer, unplug the network cable, then log in. Once you have a working desktop plug the cable back in.

I found these instructions for fixing the Autotuning here. However, it manages to set itself back to automatic after a reboot!

Before you begin, reboot your computer into safe mode with networking enabled.

1. Open a elevated command prompt.
NOTE: For how, see: How to Open a Elevated Command Prompt in Vista

2. Click on Continue in the UAC prompt.
3. In the command prompt, type netsh interface tcp set global autotuninglevel=disabled and press Enter. (See screenshot below)
4. You will get a OK response. If not, repeat step 3.



5. Close the command prompt and restart computer to apply the changes.

Thanks for the awesome post, Brink!