Opening time after startup of Windows

[Leo Van den Brande]

I am still struggling with the long opening time of the database  
after startup of Windows.

To recapitulate:
Project: Program for generating interactive multimedial textbooks.  
Authors and student versions. Size program: 56 Mb)
Windows: XP, 1.7 GHz, 1.24 GB RAM
Mac OS 10.4.10, 1.0 GHz, 1 GB RAM
Develop on Mac with RB 2008 2, and Val 3.5.2, and build for Mac and  
Windows.
Valentina cache: 250 Mb (also tested 20 and 150 Mb).
DB: single file, size: 191 MB, Tables 34, Index nr: 297, presently  
residing on the harddisk, in future on DVD (complete textbook: 1.5 Gb).
Larger DB for testing: size: 513 MB, same specifications.

Results:
Windows. First opening:  Actual DB:  44-50 sec, Large DB:  115-121  
sec. Second opening of the program without going out of Windows: 2  
rsp. 3-4 sec.
Mac. First opening:  Actual DB:  6 sec, Large DB:  14 sec. Second  
opening without going out of the Mac: 6 sec in both instances.
Empty DB by cloning without records: size 82 Mb; time with Val cache  
20 Mb: 10 sec, with Cache 250 Mb: 30 sec.
For checking specificity: the largest Word document I could create  
opens almost immediately (max 1 sec).

I have done some more tests and have now collected the experience of  
six testers. Questions:

1. What exactly happens on opening the DB that requires such long  
opening times at first startup of Windows?

Thorsten suggested it could be the result of activity of the  
Antivirus program.
At first I thought that was it since I found reduced times after  
exclusion of the Antivirus program. However, later tests showed that  
this is rather a variation for incomprehensable reasons. In spite of  
changing any variable I can think of, I cannot reproduce short times  
(8-10 sec.) wich occurred twice.

Decreasing the Val cache to 20 Mb Increases time somewhat and 150 MB  
had no influence.

The testers, using widely varying PC's reported long times as well.  
These varied between 20 and 45 seconds (note this is only on opening  
the DB after startup of the PC). Excluding the antivirus program gave  
some reduction in some but not all.
There were two exceptions:
- one very fast: 1.3  seconds with Intel Core-2, 2.5 Ghz, 4Gb RAM,  
both Windows XP and Vista.
- one extremely slow: 209, 11 and 9- seconds on repitition with a  
Dell Inspiron, Ghz not reported, 512 MB RAM(!)

Conclusion: overall opening times are long albeit with great variation.

2. Does the delay have to do with reindexing or are there other  
factors involved? Can I suppress indexing? If so, how exactly? I  
cannot find this in the documention.

3. Could the long time be suppressed in the student's version by  
making the database Read-Only before compilation?
Ruslan suggested: In the properties specify Read only flag for db files.
But where and how exactly do I set this flag? I looked in vain in the  
documentation and tried a lot of things, with no success!

In earlier discussions on the subject (with Russ Tyndall) , Ruslan  
suggested lazy access, but here the different tables must be  
accessable immediately after opening. Anyway, I found no  
documentation and would not know how to do that.

Clearly, in particular the students,, but also the authors will not  
accept such waiting times!

I hope there is a simple solution that I have not thought about!

Thanks for any help!

Leo


Leo Van den Brande
J.Buziaulaan 61
3584 ZT Utrecht
(+31) (0)30 2511767
leo_van_den_brande at wxs.nl