Our church treasurer uses QuickBooks. Says it's slow, slow, slow. Any suggestions?
She runs it on an XP machine running SP-2 with 512 MB of memory. I assume she keeps it updated but not certain. I have already done lots of housekeeping on XP (stopped some background programs from starting during boot-up, increased virtual memory, etc).
I'm look for specific changes to QuickBooks that might make it run faster. Believe printing is one slow area.
OldEd
Running on an XP machine is like driving in a four wheeled automobile. One has no idea how fast either is capable of going without more information.
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I'd guess size of the database and the amount/type of printing/printer would be key here. Any machine of modern-enough vintage to have shipped w/ XP is likely to not be the issue itself assuming, of course, it's not infected w/ some form of worm/virus/other malware.
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Upgrading your memory is the best way to boost performance. It's so cheap these days that you should go to 2GB.
... I really didn't note the memory consciously before...w/ XP 512MB isn't that much and the other posters' suggestions are probably valid. I suppose it's also possible (probable?) the machine was bottom-dollar given the organization in an attempt to economize.
But, the database is a file w/ company name w/ .qb extension to see just how large it is.
There's a section in the online help on condensing the database -- read the limitations/what happens before just doing so. The memory issue may be the better route.
What, other than printing, is slow?
Might be able to help the printing issue by printing to a file then dumping the file to the printer rather than printing directly from QB as well.
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Is slow printing an issue with other applications? Put a stopwatch to it as it may be the impatience factor at play.
If the issue is report generation, yes it is slow slow slow.
I don't think memory is the issue. I have a pretty old machine with a 3.2 Ghz P4 processor with 512MB on XP and it has no problems at all with 135MB .QBW database file (Quickbooks
2004 Pro) The database is even installed on a network storage device which another 2 PC's all access at the same time.I actually use tightVNC to log into that PC from home over a VPN and Quickbooks is perfectly usable. It could be that one Memory stick has died perhaps. Now 256MB would caus a significant slowdown.
or.... There could be an over-paranoia going on (My dad was guilty of this) where the machine has perhaps an expired commercial anti-virus being loaded (Macafee etc) and one of the free virus packages installed e.g. AVG Free, then a personal firewall (Zone Alarm etc) and no doubt a spyware/malware defence like .... spybot S&D not to mention everything else, AND I shouldn't wonder if they're not all set to "scan on boot" or "scan on file access" Seen it before so many times. I bet that's the more likely culprit. That and not enough disk space on the PC. Oh, I bet it's alos set to create a system restore point at the same time as it's trying to do everything else too !
:¬)
The simpler the better, the simpler the safer !
I would recommend just doing maintanance,
Do the following.
1) Do a Disk cleanup, found in Start, all programs, accessories, system tools, Disk CleanupClean the disk C:
2) once this is over, same place but now the disk Defragmenter.Again do the disk C: following with all other disks.
That should boost your system up a notch.
Denis Bernier
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