Performance difference between Access 97 and Access 2k

[Sam Kong]

Hello!

My company sells an application which is made with PowerBuilder and Access
97 via ODBC.
Do we get any performance benefit if we use Access 2000 or 2003 instead of
Access 97?

I know Access 2000 is based on Unicode.
We use only ASCII, thus that's not a benefit.
That could be disadvantage as Unicode takes double the space as ASCII.
However, if Access 2000 gives a performance benefit (or stability), we'll
convert.

More fundamental question would be whether the difference between Access 97
DB and Access 2000 DB is only data structure or more than that?
I'm not talking about the Access Application but just the data and ODBC
connection.

TIA.
Sam

 

[John Vinson]

Do we get any performance benefit if we use Access 2000 or 2003 instead of
Access 97?

I would recommend that you NOT go with 2000: it's bigger, slower, and
more prone to corruption than 97. 2003 is better; it's still going to
be a bigger database but in my experience it's about as stable as 97.
If you have no compelling reason to upgrade, though, take heart in the
fact that millions of Access97 databases are still in daily use!

John W. Vinson[MVP]
Join the online Access Chats
Tuesday 11am EDT - Thursday 3:30pm EDT
http://community.compuserve.com/msdevapps

 

[Rick Brandt]

Hello!

My company sells an application which is made with PowerBuilder and Access 97
via ODBC.
Do we get any performance benefit if we use Access 2000 or 2003 instead of
Access 97?

I know Access 2000 is based on Unicode.
We use only ASCII, thus that's not a benefit.
That could be disadvantage as Unicode takes double the space as ASCII.
However, if Access 2000 gives a performance benefit (or stability), we'll
convert.

More fundamental question would be whether the difference between Access 97 DB
and Access 2000 DB is only data structure or more than that?
I'm not talking about the Access Application but just the data and ODBC
connection.

It is indeed the _rare_ Windows application where a newer version runs faster
than an older one. Software vendors (especially MS) pretty much count on the
fact that as users upgrade software they are more often than not also upgrading
hardware. If you're lucky taking both steps will leave about where you started
performance-wise.

 

[david epsom dot com dot au]

'Replication' also apparently works better in A2K+ (Jet 4.0)

(david)

 

[Tony Toews]

It is indeed the _rare_ Windows application where a newer version runs faster
than an older one.

I'd remove Windows from that sentence. <smile>

Tony
--
Tony Toews, Microsoft Access MVP
Please respond only in the newsgroups so that others can
read the entire thread of messages.
Microsoft Access Links, Hints, Tips & Accounting Systems at
http://www.granite.ab.ca/accsmstr.htm

 

[Tony Toews]

My company sells an application which is made with PowerBuilder and Access
97 via ODBC.
Do we get any performance benefit if we use Access 2000 or 2003 instead of
Access 97?

You might if MS has optimized the code. No idea. I'd suggest doing
some timing tests and see if it's any better.

Of course there could very well be some new "minor" bugs introduced
too. Minor to everyone but your app of course.

Tony
--
Tony Toews, Microsoft Access MVP
Please respond only in the newsgroups so that others can
read the entire thread of messages.
Microsoft Access Links, Hints, Tips & Accounting Systems at
http://www.granite.ab.ca/accsmstr.htm