Performance problem with ACCESS MDB files

[Eric Rosello]

Hi,

We are using few applications developed either with Visual Basic or
Microsoft ACCESS based on MDB database files. These applications were
previously running OK when using a NOVELL 3.12 server.
In order to reduce the amount of protocols on the network and other
benefits, we've decided to replace the NOVELL server with SAMBA 19.18p10
(RH 5.2)  running on a PII-300Mhz with 96Mb of RAM.
We have noticed that Microsoft ACCESS applications are now running
faster if only one user is accessing the database, but as soon as
another user starts to access the same database file across the network
then the applications run 10 times slower and becomes nearly unusable.
If we temporary move the database file to a WIN95 shared volume, then
everything works fine. This should discard any network hardware problem.

The application developed with Visual Basic aborts time to time
reporting "Couldn't update, database read only.". This application is
used to control the utilization of our equipment and runs normally
24/24h and used to be OK under NOVELL.
I've look to performance and locking parameters, and they seem OK.
The network hardware seems healthy. The number of collisions has
dramatically improved now we only have TCP/IP and can't see any obvious
problem if I check the netstat statistics.
Anybody has the same problem? Any suggestions? Any help will be very
much appreciated because those applications MUST run 24/24h with no
trouble!

Thanks in advance.

--
Eric Rosello
Simulator Development Engineer
Gulf Air Simulator Centre
Po. Box 22082
Doha
State of Qatar
Tel: +974 351325
FAX: +974 351240