# Access 2003 exponentially slower on new computer



## kcwf25496 (Feb 5, 2008)

Hello, I'm posting this for a friend of mine. Details might be a bit shy at first but I can get any details that are needed.

They have Office 2003 with the database stored on the server. They had an older Dell workstation running Win XP, (I'm pretty sure Pentium 4 era), that they upgraded to a new Dell OptiPlex 790 with Win 7 Pro x64, i5 2400, 4gb ddr3, etc... A very nice upgrade compared to what they had before. The computer its self runs fine, except for when running querys, accessing tables, etc... in Access. It will sometimes take 1-2 minutes to do something that the old XP system would do in literally a second or two seconds.

I had done some research a while back and I found some article that said that for whatever reason, the combination of Access 2003, i5 CPU, and Windows 7 (I can't remember if it specified x64/x86 or any other specifics about the Windows version), that it caused major problems with Access load times. In the article it talked about changing just a couple changes in the registry to help the speed, and it did help just a tiny tiny bit, but still it is very slow, and not tolerable. 

For the life of me I can't find that article to post as reference, but more or less it said that with Access 2003, i5 CPU, Win 7, you were going to have problems, period, end of story. So my first gut option is to upgrade to an i7, but since it's on the same chipset and same everything else, I'm really scared to take a 200-300 dollar gamble. I don't think upgrading Office/Access at this time is an option. Can any one give any insight as to what is going on here? 

I'm going to keep looking for that article to post to you for reference.

Thanks in advance for any help,
Casey


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## kcwf25496 (Feb 5, 2008)

Also things I've read mentioned things about it being the new multi core processors with anything over 2 cores, causing problems. Also heard that downgrading from x64 OS to x86 will fix the problem on any hardware. It's just all so strange....


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## kcwf25496 (Feb 5, 2008)

bump.


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## AlbertMC2 (Jul 15, 2010)

I searched the web and came up with these 2 threads.
Very slow Access 2002 query with Windows 7
Access 2007 very slow on Windows 7
They recommend a few fixes which seem to work for some people but not others.
The interesting part is that Microsoft says that the problem seems to be the Jet 4.0 Database Engine for which there isn't an update on Windows 7 because it is End Of Life.

The alternative is to try the suggestions given which might speed up the database a little bit but not much.
Or load Windows XP as a virtual machine within Windows 7.
If you have Windows 7 Pro/ultimate you can use Windows XP Mode in which case you do not need an extra Windows XP licence.
Or for other versions of Windows 7 you can try (you do need an extra Windows XP licence.):
1. Microsoft Virtual PC
2. VMWare Player
3. Virtualbox


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