We are running an Active Directory domain environment, one of our workstation, a ThinkPad X40 running Windows XP with SP2, hangs after the user logs in. We waited over 40mins and it would still be in the same ‘loading your personal settings’ screen. We get the same result using domain administrator, domain user and local administrator accounts. When in Safe mode, local accounts logs in fine. Any one has any suggestions that we can try?

clear out the docs and settings/user/local settings/temp and temp internet and then the c/windows/prefetch folder along with the start menu and registry.

what do you mean by dlear out registry?

Sounds like you might have an error in your HKEY_CURRENT_USER registry key. There are two ways to address this. I suggest you start with a registry cleaner such as registrypatrol.com and have it scan your system to see if there is any problems. It will come back with any issues of which you can either edit manually by going into the RUN portion of your computer and entering regedit and fixing the problem yourself, or if the issue is above your understanding, use the program to correct the issue. When in Doubt, ask the Nerd...

another thing you could try is if the computers are given IP's by DHCP you could add the IP of the server as DNS servers in the TCP/IP config window. See if that works