Conversion taking much longer on windows 7/server 2008 without a user login

I changed to a new computer for my home media server. I have noticed that the files are taking up to four hours or longer to convert on the MP4 high quality setting. When I changed to the fast setting, it still takes over an hour for each file when converted automatically after a show is recorded in a monitored folder. But if I stop a conversion while it is in progress (stop, not pause), then restart MCEBuddy, it only takes about 12 minutes to convert. I have hardware conversion selected. I updated my Intel graphic drivers to the ones listed as stable on the support site. Any suggestions. The following are my log files.

Initial file on automatic mode:
9-1-1.S01E01.Pilot.ts-Convert to MP4-2018-02-21T21-04-01.6964751-06-00.log (641.3 KB)

This is the log file after I stop & restart MCEBuddy:
9-1-1.S01E01.Pilot.ts-Convert to MP4-2018-02-21T21-31-25.9657654-06-00.log (571.5 KB)

It’s your windows version/setup. You’re using Windows 7 or Server 2008 and it doesn’t support hardware acceleration when no users are logged in (headless) and requires atleast one user to be logged in.

In your “automatic mode” when there is no user logged in it throws a warning message:

2018-02-21T21:05:58 MCEBuddy.AppWrapper.Handbrake → Starting process as a UISession process with Admin privileges. This requires atleast 1 user to be logged into the system (remote desktop or locally)
ERROR> 2018-02-21T21:05:58 → StartAppWithAdminPrivilegesFromNonUISession WTSQueryUserToken failed (No logged on users) with error 1008. An attempt was made to reference a token that does not exist.
WARNING> 2018-02-21T21:05:58 MCEBuddy.AppWrapper.Handbrake → Unable to create UI Session process with Admin Privileges from NonUI Session. Is any user logged on?

So it falls back to a non user session and your graphics driver runs “slowly” at about 50fps

2018-02-21T21:30:47 MCEBuddy.AppWrapper.Handbrake → Encoding: task 1 of 1, 35.68 % (47.26 fps, avg 54.73 fps, ETA 00h44m35s)

When you login, MCEBuddy is able to use the user login to trick windows 7 into using hardware acceleration and speed jumps up to close to 400 fps

2018-02-21T21:39:00 MCEBuddy.AppWrapper.Handbrake → Encoding: task 1 of 1, 52.96 % (389.77 fps, avg 363.31 fps, ETA 00h04m54s)

Windows 8.1 and newer versions don’t have this restriction and can run hardware acceleration even without any users logged in.

So you can either upgrade to newer version of Windows or have a user logged into your Windows 7/Server 2008 machine while running MCEBuddy.

Thanks. I was using the built in Windows Remote Desktop application to access the media computer from my personal computer. That is what is making it appear I am not logged on because I do not keep the Remote desktop open all the time.
I have installed UltraVNC which allows me to access the computer without logging off. Hopefully this will address the issue.