[AccessD] Access & Windows 2000 Performance issues with linked tables

Mark L. Breen subs at solution-providers.ie
Sat Mar 1 04:14:00 CST 2003


Hello All,

I was asked recently to move a database that I created three years ago from
a Win NT 4.0 Server server to a new Windows 2000 Server server.

The database application that I developed is built on a FE, a BE and a MDA
file and also a .mdw file.

When the backend is on the NT server, performance is fine, but when I move
it to the new Windows 2000 server ( a super duper server with loads of disk
/ ram / processor ), it grinds to a halt.

To make a long story short, it appears that Microsoft have introduced
something to the Win2K and WinXP OS's that cause linked tables to perform
very slowly.  There is an article in the KB about this.

Their suggestion (as opposed to the fix) is instead of talking to the
properties of the linked tables, to programatically open the backend and
talk directly to the properties of the source tables.

In my case, I would have to re-write the entire application and it is not
ecomomical to do so, a better alternative to that would be simply to rebuild
the app in SQL and use ADO.

However, I had another idea which was to bring the BE back into the FE and
leave it as one .mdb file.  When I tried that it solved my problem.

The purpose of this email is to share the information with you guys and ask
if you have experienced this also.

Incidently, the 'normal' operations such as reading data, querying etc, was
never impaired, it was only when talking to linked tables,

If you wish to demonstrate this for yourself, create a db with one table and
with about eight fields or so.  Save the db as Somename_BE.mdb on a > = Win
2k machine, it can be Pro or Server.  Then create another db and link to
Somename_BE.mdb.  Finally, let the form wizard create a new form and pull
all the fields in.  The form creatation should talk you about ten seconds or
so.  If you do the same thing on a Win NT Server, it happens in one second.

I do not know if this will help anyone, but hopefully it might.

Best Regards


Mark L. Breen
Solution Providers Ltd
Ireland





More information about the AccessD mailing list