[Solved] "Preparing Windows for you" screen on Guest user sign in seemingly never ending.

tired-it

tired-it

Member
Messages
241
Reaction score
23
Windows 11 24H2, July 2025 patch applied through NTLite. Removed a few components and added some tweaks. Presets are largely unchanged from the past several months with the exception of fewer components removed in the associated preset.

Installation completes without noticeable issues. There are three accounts built into the ISO, an admin, a standard Local account and a Student guest account. If I first choose the Student account, I am met with a never-ending "Preparing Windows for you" screen. Normally that screen lasts only a couple of minutes before reaching the desktop.

I left the PC on that screen for 30+ minutes with seemingly no end. It can be escaped by using CTRL-ALT-DEL to sign out before I can successfully sign back in. The other two accounts work fine with the "Preparing Windows for you" screen lasting less than 2 minutes before reaching the desktop. These 3 accounts have been unchanged for the past several months and have worked just fine until now.

Could this be a post-setup script hanging things? Here is what I have modified for the user:
1] A few icons placed into the Public Desktop folder.
2] Custom Start Menu and taskbar files dropped into the default user profile from within NTLite's mounted directory interface.
3] A RunOnce.bat file that executes a few registry tweaks (remove Home from navigation and turn the Search bar into an icon)
4] VLC should be installed, but the MSI silent install has stopped working again.

Any ideas on what is going on?

Latest update on post #13.
 

Attachments

Last edited:
What happens when you remove the RunOnce script, and the reg imports?
 
garlin said:
What happens when you remove the RunOnce script, and the reg imports?
Click to expand...
I'll try that sometime this week. The script and reg imports have not been changed in several months so I would hope those are not the issue now, but might as well rule that out. It's only happening to the student guest account. If I log into the admin account or even the local (non-admin) test account, then everything is good.
 
In your OOBE pass, "student" is the only user without a password. So I don't know if your reg files apply a specific change that impacts users without a password.
 
garlin said:
In your OOBE pass, "student" is the only user without a password. So I don't know if your reg files apply a specific change that impacts users without a password.
Click to expand...
For what it's worth, my reg files are a modified version of Hellbovine's tweaks. I have a feeling it's a permissions issue because the student account is set to a custom guest account value to prevent access to the Settings panel.
 
If that's the case, then you don't need to do a full install to test the problem. It would be the same thing as applying the security changes on a live system, creating a new test account, and logging on. When the problem is not a result of OOBE, then it's from new user provisioning.
 
garlin said:
If that's the case, then you don't need to do a full install to test the problem. It would be the same thing as applying the security changes on a live system, creating a new test account, and logging on. When the problem is not a result of OOBE, then it's from new user provisioning.
Click to expand...
Yeah. Other test accounts are working fine. Did something change with user provisioning in Windows in since April/May? This issue only applies to the first login of the guest account on a fresh install. After forcing a logout, future logins work fine, though I definitely notice that some defaults are not applied.

For instance, I have a modified XML file to clear the Start Menu of any pins. This file is placed into the Default User so the changes persist across all users. On other test accounts, I can confirm that the Start Menu is cleared. The guest account ends up with three Microsoft related pins (Store, Explorer and Edge). So it definitely seems like something is hanging or going wrong during provisioning, which is the first time I have encountered this issue.

I did have one PC miraculously complete provisioning of the guest account after an absurd amount of time and the Start Menu had no pins like I had set in the XML file. Is this fixable? The student account must be a guest account because I want to limit access to settings. Unless there is a registry settings that prevents access to settings and the control panel for just one account?
 
garlin said:
I've never created a guest account myself, but you can apply a GPO rule to a specific user:
https://activedirectorypro.com/restrict-control-panel-access-using-group-policy/

What can do you is to export the created policy file from a live system using LGPO, and import them in Post-Setup (Before logon).
Click to expand...
A guest account can be created in the following fashion:
Code: 
net user student /add /active:yes
net user student *
net localgroup guests student /add

The same can be accomplished in NTLite by adding 'guest' to the custom group field when making an account in the Unattended page. Guest accounts cannot access the Settings or Control Panel. Those accounts cannot install anything either. So it's perfect for public use cases without having to worry about preconfiguring Group Policy.

I'll look into exporting a policy file though, that looks useful. I am still curious as to what is going on with provisioning a guest account for the first time after install.
 
No, my point is I don't play with guest accounts because they have temporary profiles. Which get deleted when they log out. Since I'm not in that line of work that requires tiered access, I don't use them.
 
garlin said:
No, my point is I don't play with guest accounts because they have temporary profiles. Which get deleted when they log out. Since I'm not in that line of work that requires tiered access, I don't use them.
Click to expand...
Are you sure they get deleted? The guest accounts that I make persist across multiple login/logouts and shutdowns. People add icons and files to the desktop all the time and those files persist.
 
Update: I have an Windows 11 24H2 ISO with build number 26100.3915. This dates the ISO to the April 25th in terms of Windows updates.

1] If I image a PC with the above ISO, the Student account is able to log in just fine after a short "Preparing Windows for you" screen.
1a] If I sign into the admin account and use Windows Updates to catch the system up to the July updates, then logging into the Student account will seemingly freeze on the "Preparing Windows for you" screen.

2] If I use an ISO with the July updates built-in (build number 26100.4652), I encounter the same issue no matter if I sign into the admin or Student account first.

This leads me to believe that a Windows update may have something to do with why the student account is seemingly freezing on that screen. I do not know enough about user provisioning to take an educated guess as to how the process is being stalled, but something is off.

What I do know that even though the "Preparing Windows for you" screen is seemingly endless, I can still CTRL-ATL-DEL and manually Sign Out of the Student account. I can then sign back in and actually reach the desktop; however, I do notice that my Start Menu customizations are not expressed.

The Start Menu tweaks should work as far as I know. The tweaks are simply removing all icons sans Google Chrome. These are just the XML files copied over to the default user profile. The tweaks show up fine on the admin account and on a separate Local account. Only the Student "guest" account is seemingly affected.

Still trying to figure out what's happening here. The guest account was a convenient solution for a locked down Windows experience and I would rather not have to find an alternative.
 
On a whim I decided to create a fresh image with the August updates integrated. I must have poured over the presets and removals over a dozen times over several days. Somehow, this new image allowed the 'guest' account to login without any issue. I'm still not sure what was causing the process to hang before, but I have a suspicion it was related to a Windows Cumulative update.

In any case, I am marking this as solved until the issue presents itself again.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top