Access Performance Woes on a Mixed Client Network

[Steve Le Monnier]

We've recently migrated a busy multi-user Access DB from version 2.0 to
version 97. Once we have sorted out the modifications needed and the
licenses we will eventually move to Access XP, but for the time-being we
have to stick the Access 97.

We are having some bizarre performance problems which I don't fully
understand and not sure how to resolve them. Our client DB has attached
tables from 5 other access DB's sitting on a Windows 2000 server. If there
are no other users running the application the performance is as good as it
was when it was Access 2.0, but if other users are connected the performance
is terrible. It takes minutes not seconds to refresh the attached tables and
just opening a table using the design environment causes a noticeable pause.
If we kick the users out its perfect again.

I have started to ensure that each client PC has the Office SR2b service
pack applied as well as the JET 3.5 SP3 pack. While applying these I noticed
some interesting behaviour. After updating half a dozen Windows 2000 or
Windows XP clients and testing the performance by leaving each updated
client in the application I noticed that performance was not dropping off...
well not noticeably.

As soon as a Windows 98 client connected to the server DB's then the
performance of all clients drops off dramatically. So far I have not had a
chance to apply Office SR2b and JET 3.5 SP3 on all Windows 98 clients yet,
but having done just the one and witnessed the drop in performance I am
coming to the conclusion that its the Windows 98 Clients that are causing
the problems... but why?

Is there a known problem with mixed OS clients accessing DB's on Windows
2000 server. Is there any other things I can do to get the performance at
least back to that of Access 2.0.

Any assistance or points or words of wisdom would be greatly appreciated.

Steve Le Monnier

 

[david epsom dot com dot au]

Yes. And if you add Win95, it crashes entirely. But I wouldn't be
surprised to find that the Win98 clients work better if you disconnect the
Win2K clients -- Win2K Server is supposed to modify it's network protocols
when you have Win9x clients, and it may be that the mixed environment is
worse than either alone would be.

There is a lot of overhead in attempting to create and delete the ldb files
in A97, so the optimisations listed by Tony will make a big difference.

(david)