RAM upgrade

[Leslie Isaacs]

Hello All

I am using W2K and Office 97 on a peer-to-peer network of 5 PCs. The main
application in use is a complex Access db, with a single backend (on one of
the PCs, which does nothing else - doesn't have Office installed) and a
seperate frontend on each of the other 4 PCs.

I am considering upgrading/replacing 1 or more of the PCs, and the question
is how much RAM to go for: I had intended for 1Gb all round, but have been
told by a colleague that either Office, or Access, or W2K (he can't remember
which!), can only use 512Mb, so any more would be a waste. Can anyone either
confirm or deny this allegation?

Hope someone can help.
Many thanks
Leslie Isaacs

 

[Alex White MCDBA MCSE]

Hi Leslie,

it's not whether office can use more than 512MB ram, because other program
could be running, like the OS, generally most users will not see much of a
performance difference between 512MB and 1GB, this does depend on how many
applications are running at any one time. My rule is normal users 512MB and
power users (Developers and heavy users) 1GB, the cost difference between
the two is not that much anyway.

 

[Van T. Dinh]

1 GB is fine. Your colleague probably remembered that Access 97 could not
use 1 GB or more but there is an update for JET Engine 3.5 so that you can
use 1 GB or more of RAM.

See the Microsoft Knowledge Base article:

http://support.microsoft.com/?id=161255