Windows 2000 vs Windows NT

[nettiet]

We have switched some of the computers on our network from Windows NT to Windows 2000. We are seeing significant increase in times to export a file to .xls format (from 1 second in NT to 115 seconds in 2000). Has anyone else experienced this? If so any ideas on where to go with it?

[Steve Caiels]

Hi,
Monarch uses Microsoft components to create its Excel files. It is probably to do with the version of Jet. But if you still have 1 pc with NT and a comparable spec pc with 2000 available for testing, then try the following.

Launch Monarch with the same report and model on both PC’s. On each, go into the Options/Folders and File Types menu and set the XLS file version to Excel 2.1 (Monarch v3) and time the export.

This uses a different method of exporting. Any difference in the export time here is likely to be caused by a general system performance issue. Check out swap files, free hard disk space, disk fragmentation, a working and relatively clean temp directory etc.

If the export times are comparable here, but you still get large differences when exporting to any other version of Excel, then it is probably a Microsoft issue. These can arise by mixing different versions of Windows and Office (for example Office 98 on a Win 2000 PC) or many other applications can cause problems and conflicts.

You should be able to resolve these by visiting
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;q282010&FinishURL=%2Fdownloads%2Frelease%2Easp%3FReleaseID %3D37999%26area%3Dsearch%26ordinal%3D1%26redirect% 3Dno

Usually downloading MDAC 2.6 found at http://www.microsoft.com/data/download_26sp1.htm and Jet 4.0 sp3 found at http://www.microsoft.com/data/download_Jet4SP3.htm fixes it.
But you should check the full link for warnings and known issues.

Regards
Steve