For more than 10 years we have been using Q&A with very few problems. We currently are using it on our network (with a Windows NT server) with Windows 95 and Windows 98 clients. Most of the Windows 95 clients are 66 or 166Mhz PCs with one sporting a 350Mhz AMD K-6 processor. The one Windows 98 PC also has a 350Mhz AMD processor. We have Network Packs for 16 users. Q&A (the program files as well as the databases) resides on my server and the clients access this application using the following local batch file asrecommended by Symantec:

K: (Network Drive)
CD\QA QA -PC:\XXXXX -YM1 (XXXXX = personal config. directory)

This setup works for us except for an occasional (one or two times a week) system error that’s we remedy by having all users exit Q&A (which resets the user count) and recovering the data base. This isn’t the real reason for my inquiry, but I wouldn’t mind it if someone could lead me in the right direction as to whether or not this is fixable. (I’ve just assumed that the statement from Symantec regarding Q&A for DOS non-compatibility with Windows is the cause.)

In the last few weeks we’ve been trying to replace some of our workstations with new systems. We’ve purchased Dell XPS T450 systems that have Windows 98 (Second Edition) pre-installed, Pentium III processors (450Mhz), and 13GB Hard Drives. When I try to run the batch file to access Q&A I received a DOS divide error. After surfing the net I found several suggestions about this problem but all seemed to be directed for local application issues. I understand that Q&A doesn’t recognize hard drives larger than 1.96G and that Q&A 5.0 can’t cope with the new processor speeds. I’d rather not partition my server drive and would prefer instead to use the LESSPACE.COM utility. I would also like to know this: If I apply the Speedfix patch to remedy the processor speed problem, will it affect my network performance? I did try LESSPACE.COM in my batch file, but I’m still getting divide errors. I’m getting desperate and would appreciate any help I can get on these issues.

Just as you've stated, the problem of divide error or overflow is absolutely being caused by the lack of the Speedfix patch (Q&A 5.0 only). Even though Q&A resides on your server, it's running in your local machines' memory. Just think of your server as another hard drive in your local system. Apply the Speedfix patch to the QA1.EXE file on the network drive. It will not affect network performance. It will not slow down your server or workstation. It simply updates the timing routines in Q&A to accommodate today's faster processors. It is a totally internal Q&A 5.0 patch.As for LESSPACE.COM, read the text file that comes with it. You will have to modify your batch file, changing it to something like this:

K:
CD\QA
lesspace  (Make sure that there is a copy of the lesspace program in the network QA directory)
qa -pc:\xxxxxx (Leave out the -VM1 switch which disables expanded memory)

This should solve your problems -- even the errors with the personal path info being written to a large drive. Another tip: We've found that Q&A runs much better on an NT server if you set up the server with a very large cache (four to five times the NT recommended level) and if you set your Q&A databases to Allow rather than Automatic at the File / Design a File / Secure a File / Declare Sharing Mode screen.

And one last bit of advice: The server should be rebooted weekly as part of a standard maintenance procedure. NT servers have severe kernel memory leaks when running DOS programs and will lock up if not occasionally rebooted. Depending on the number of users in a given database at a given time, the performance should run from excellent to good. But the likelihood of "network busy" messages increases as you go longer between reboots with more users.One possible solution to the memory leaks problem (we've conducted only limited tests) is to download and install MEMTURBO from Silicon Prairie Software. This utility seems to effectively manage the physical RAM as well as the memory leaks. It's advertised to work in Windows 9x and Windows NT. You can get it free for a 30 day trial ($19.00 to register) from www.wugnet.com or www.memturbo.com. Just remember that we've tested this product only on a limited basis. We'll keep you posted as we learn more about it.

We all know that NT is not all that it’s advertised to be. It is extremely finicky about hardware, file sharing, timing, memory, network access, and so on. We have been struggling with these problems for months and have come up with what we feel is the best set of guidelines to date. These rules will not guarantee that you will have no problems, but our experience is that they have allowed us to run in many NT installations successfully. Remember, they only apply to DOS versions. (Q&A for Windows will not run in NT.)

• One of the major issues seems to be when a person leaves Q&A open in the background, on their task bar, and has the properties of the shortcut set to "always suspend." Make sure to uncheck this checkbox in the Q&A Shortcut properties on the Miscellaneous tab. Make sure people close the database if they will not be using it for long periods of time.
• Another major problem seems to occur when trying to XPost in Q&A 5.0. (When one user gets hung up, others do not necessarily lock up.) The real problem is that the server seems to lock the file and will not allow it to be accessed again until either the server is rebooted or the offending user is logged off from the server. Make sure that all of your database files are healthy and are Generation One. (See previous tips and articles on this topic. You can search The Quick Answer back issue indexes at www.quickanswer.com to find out which issues they’re in.)
• Use only one networking protocol (for example, TCP/IP).
• All network cards should be the same speed (10Mbs or 100Mbs, but not mixed).
• Run Q&A from local drives (rather than from the server with the Network Pack).
• Set your NT virtual memory to at least three times the recommended size.
• Set each database’s Sharing Mode to Allow (instead of Automatic).
• Avoid the use of screen savers.
• Share only the data folders rather than the entire drive.
• Keep the databases on a FAT rather than an NTFS partition.
• Never perform database Recovery across the network from a workstation. Copy the database to a workstation, perform the Recovery there, then copy the database back to the network drive.