A client has a W2K SP4 Server 2GHz, 2 GB Ram where they run a management app built some years ago, in Ms Access, now under 2003, (Office recently updated to SP3, MsJet and MDAC have also been updated recently on the server.
There is a growing problem, over quite some time, of Access giving poor performance, slow response and consuming disproportionate amounts of CPU usage, to the point where the CPU usage of only 6 msaccess.exe processes running was over 75%.
The memory usage runs at around 35 MB/Access session.
The project code is not optimal, I have seen that there are many cases of non closed objects, (set nothing/close missing etc.) a possible memory leak perhaps.
It is possible that the code references something inappropriate, perhaps not up to date.
The FE is certainly very bloated (>50 MB), just by doing a decompile/compile brought it down 25% and importing to a new DB down to 50%. The exported objects and code go down to around < 10%.
Up to now the firm has always used one single FrontEnd for All Users rather than a distributed FE.
The original programmer should be visiting in the future but it already seems clear that something is amiss.
Using perfmon it is clear that this is related to Access but not yet clear if there is something else which is wrong, ie. with Terminal Server (this latter has run well for over 6 years)
The idea of new Server for the moment is not on the client's budget for the moment.
I should be testing the Server with no MsAccess but with several Office Apps per user to see how this impacts the server (within the next two days) and then try a typical Northwind DB on the Server with full access with all users in order to see the impact of MsAccess on the TS using a tested DB compared to the actual DB.
Question: Any suggestions as to where the main problem might lie ?
or what might be the best appoach to detect the principle cause and resolve the problem.
(apart from rebuild the App)
Thank you
There is a growing problem, over quite some time, of Access giving poor performance, slow response and consuming disproportionate amounts of CPU usage, to the point where the CPU usage of only 6 msaccess.exe processes running was over 75%.
The memory usage runs at around 35 MB/Access session.
The project code is not optimal, I have seen that there are many cases of non closed objects, (set nothing/close missing etc.) a possible memory leak perhaps.
It is possible that the code references something inappropriate, perhaps not up to date.
The FE is certainly very bloated (>50 MB), just by doing a decompile/compile brought it down 25% and importing to a new DB down to 50%. The exported objects and code go down to around < 10%.
Up to now the firm has always used one single FrontEnd for All Users rather than a distributed FE.
The original programmer should be visiting in the future but it already seems clear that something is amiss.
Using perfmon it is clear that this is related to Access but not yet clear if there is something else which is wrong, ie. with Terminal Server (this latter has run well for over 6 years)
The idea of new Server for the moment is not on the client's budget for the moment.
I should be testing the Server with no MsAccess but with several Office Apps per user to see how this impacts the server (within the next two days) and then try a typical Northwind DB on the Server with full access with all users in order to see the impact of MsAccess on the TS using a tested DB compared to the actual DB.
Question: Any suggestions as to where the main problem might lie ?
or what might be the best appoach to detect the principle cause and resolve the problem.
(apart from rebuild the App)
Thank you