We recently discovered that although Windows XP works reasonably well on a workstation computer, it may cause system slowdowns when it is run on the server. (A server is the computer that holds the data files.) The reason is that Windows XP performs a number of tests on each data file each time the program attempts to use them. This testing takes place in the background for Windows applications, but is very obtrusive for DOS applications; no file access is allowed until the testing is complete.

Thus a new powerful server computer using Windows XP may result in a much slower network.

We are currently researching whether these slowdowns can be corrected by changing certain Windows XP configurations. As these are “core level” issues to the way that Windows XP works, we can’t guarantee that we will be able to correct these issues, but we are currently field testing possible solutions.

If you have any questions about this, or would like to learn more about ViewPoint, please don’t hesitate to contact your Systems Consultant.