Access 2010 slow on Windows 10 (1 Viewer)

I have been experiencing three different slowness problems with my Access 2010 database since I upgraded to a Windows 10 operating system. Yes, it has a lot of forms, queries, sub forms, etc., but when I ran it on Windows 7 it was always fast. At least fast enough for me. The DB is split and I have both the front end and back end on my computer.

Case 1: the database opens but when I click on an Event Procedure, it can take from one to five minutes to load the code window. Never took more than a few seconds previously.

Cast 2: the database takes from one to five minutes to open. Keeps saying it is not responding and then finally opens. When this happens I can access the code without any problem as explained in Case 1.

Case 3: The database takes from one to five minutes to close. Sometimes I have to use the task manager to close it. This can happen but not always with either Case 1 or Case 2.

I have tried the auto correct uncheck, but nothing improves.

Is it my computer that is just slow? It is a Dell with Windows 10 home, Intel Core i3-6100 Cpu @ 2.3 Ghz with 8 GB Memory, 64 bit system. Or is it the Windows 10 operating system and are there any fixes?

Thanks for listening to my kvetching.

I can't relate to the hardware specs, but how large is the db? Maybe you need to compact it more often? You could always examine the system resource monitor (Task Manager) when the db is open, or maybe even opening.

I have an issue before about sharing folder and when I googled it's not me who is experiencing it. my os win 10 x64.

I can't remember the details but I recall some issue about the default printer not being set up properly makes starting up very slow.

Something like Access checks for it during startup and times out separately on each object.

Eljefegeneo said:

Is it my computer that is just slow? It is a Dell with Windows 10 home, Intel Core i3-6100 Cpu @ 2.3 Ghz with 8 GB Memory, 64 bit system. Or is it the Windows 10 operating system and are there any fixes?

Thanks for listening to my kvetching.

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Whether you have i3, i5 or i7 the time difference won't be that much different.

I have an old HP with Intel Celeron and the computer was originally Windows 7 and was converted to W10 when Microsoft first introduced that free conversion to W10. It takes quite a bit longer to actually start up W10 but it runs a very large and complex Access Ok but slower in many areas. However the differences could be considered proportional. Some longer procedures where several queries will run and Word is opened and data goes to Word bookmarks and a Word file is created and also opening Excel and putting data from Access into Excel cells might run about 15 seconds on faster machines the old Intel Celeron will be though in about a minute.

If I had your problem the first thing I would do would be to run one of my backup versions of the DB and I have many as backups are being made about every week.

If I did not have all the backups of the DB then my first thing would be to create a new blank data base and import EVERYTING into to it from your existing data base. and see how the new one runs. Sometimes importing everything will also show a problem, usually with form, as it will not import.

As to W10 I find no problem and have run Access 2000, 2003, 2007, 2010 and 2013 nd 2016.

If the new data base with everything imported did not fix things then my next move would be go to Settings, then Upgrade and Security and then Recovery from the list on the left when open Upgrade and Security.

A window will open with a couple of choices and the top one is what you want Reset this PC. You get a couple of options and pick the one that removes all your files, not just applications you have added like MS Office, Acrobat Reader etc.

This could take several hours. Depending on the computer it might take up to 30 minutes to get fully going. You will know it is fully going when you see on the screen Resetting this PC 1% then 2% and so on. You can now go to bed or whatever. After what could be a few hours it will come to stop because it needs information from you such as your country, WiFi password etc.

It will reinstall windows and although it will be saying it is getting updates it never gets all of them. So one finished, wait a while, even a day then go to Updates and Security and check for updates.

NATURALLY it is essential to have all your files backed up before doing this as nothing will be left. Basically what you will have is the same as if you bought a new computer tomorrow and got it going.

Personally, apart from the importing everything to a new blank DB, I find for myself and others PC Reset is the best option.

Four of my computers have small 128 gb SSD and with my backup/restore system they will do the lot including putting back my files in an hour or less. Might take 15 minutes or so to download Office 365 again. If even get a hint of problems I will do PC reset.

When you switched to Win10, one question is whether your swap file is properly sized. In the control panel, under System, you can find the advanced tab that gives you some tuning options, one of which is virtual memory. It is recommended that regardless of what system you are on, virtual memory should never be smaller than physical memory. This should be a one-time check so shouldn't be too much of an issue.

The reason why? All processes that are brought into memory have the chance to get paged or swapped out of memory based on priorities. To assure (ahead of time) that such actions are even possible, Windows won't bring you into memory until it has a place to put you out of memory in a "backing store" - essentially a scratchpad area - where the data areas and some impure code areas can be stored if you DO get swapped out.

If you have barely sufficient space for the virtual memory, the system has to work harder to assure that your code has a place to go in case of priority-related outswaps. If you have larger vm space allocated, it is easier to manage that process.

The_Doc_Man said:

In the control panel, under System,

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He probably needs to know that to get to Control Panel he needs to enter that in the search box at bottom left for it to come up and then he can pin it to the taskbar.

Thanks to everyone. Mike375, yes I already put the Control Panel Icon on the task bar. Learned that a long time ago.



I am going to try some of the simpler "fixes" firs, but am loath to do a complete reset. Way beyond my level of expertise.

OK, my virtual memory says Automatic manage right now. Says it has 5120 MB of virtual memory. So I should uncheck it and go to custom and now I have to add an Initial and Maximum sizes. And suggestions? I have never even gotten into my system this far before.

Eljefegeneo said:

Thanks to everyone. Mike375, yes I already put the Control Panel Icon on the task bar. Learned that a long time ago.



I am going to try some of the simpler "fixes" firs, but am loath to do a complete reset. Way beyond my level of expertise.

Click to expand...

It is very simple and is not really that different to when you get a new computer. In fact after it is done if go to File Explorer it would look just like a new computer you bought and tuned on for the first time and them went through the various things the computer takes you through. I have had heaps of people do it and there computer expertise is way below you.

now I have to add an Initial and Maximum sizes.

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In general, the recommendation for "Initial" is exactly the size of physical memory, which in your case would be 8192 Mb. Maximum recommendation would be 1.5 to 2.0 x physical memory. I doubt you need 2.0 x 8 Gb. Heck, even with my big-memory games, I don't need that much.

You could specify 12,288 Mb (1.5 x 8192), but if this is a laptop, free disk space for this might be limited and you might not really need that much. The more important number here is the minimum. Before you make up your mind on this, see how much free space you have. Perhaps if you can do so, you should defrag your hard drive to maximize contiguous free space. Swap files do better when they have contiguous free space but most other files don't care. Once you have defragged the drive, check free space. If things are really tight, you CAN put the same number for Initial and Maximum. If you have the room, a Maximum of 12,288 Mb is as high as I would go.

There are purists who would suggest that "Initial = physical memory size" is overkill. I don't know that for sure because everyone's system load is different. There is as much art as science in this decision.

I'll try this tomorrow when I have more than a few minutes to work on this. Appreciate your input

Hi Eljefegeneo and others,

I'm experiencing the exact same problem. This here is the first thread I can find where someone else is having the same issue.

I have Office 2010 and 365 (both 32-bits) running on a brand new Surface Pro 7 i7 with 16Gb of memory and a 1TB SSD hard drive, running 64 bits Windows Pro (installed a few days ago).

I've had this problem with my previous Surface Pro 4 i7 as well, and can't seem to find a solution.

Did the suggestions work for you, Eljefegeneo ?

Sorry no I do not. I am sure that it is just my computer that is slow, but it could also be that I have way too many codings in my Access program. I am just living with it. It doesn't seem to affect the running of Access, just bringing up the module portion to edit or add new coding.

When trying to tune or identify system slowdowns, the general rule is as follows.

1. The slower the disk, the slower the system. If you can do so, try to look up the statistics on your disk drive's rotational rate and head (seek) speed.

Fastest is always going to be SSD, followed by the traditional disks with some number of RPMs. The highest I've ever personally used was a 15K rpm, and I've also used disks that were half that speed. Seek-arm speed is another issue, with older drives having 10+ msec for maximum deflection, and I've seen some with 5 msec for max deflection.

Part of that will also be related to bus structure. If you can find the specs for your system, check the speeds on the bus used for the disks. Fastest would be fiber-channel, but after that you have IDE, ATI, SCSI, and a host of less common connection methods.

If your problem specifically is that moving from machine A to machine B caused your stuff to go a LOT slower, then compare specs on the two disks involved.

2. The slower the memory OR the smaller the memory, the more likely you are to have issues. Having inadequate memory SPEED obviously means everything you do will be slower since NOTHING happens unless it happens in memory. Having inadequate memory SIZE means that you will have to fight battles with other processes that also want to use memory. And given the pot-load of things that get loaded by Win10, that system load is a lot more intense than for earlier systems. Smaller memories run you into the problem of having to swap more often, which means your programs run at DISK speed rather than at memory speed.

Having mixed-speed memories might also cause issues because the system operation would become ragged as every other instruction would have to wait fractionally longer and it might lead to some complications during disk transfers.

3. When all else fails, look to the CPUs. The "bitness" of the O/S is significant in that IF you have a 64-bit system, certain operations are possible that otherwise would have to be simulated on 32-bit systems. But above and beyond that factor, look at the number of threads and the speed of the CPUs. When comparing current and former systems you have to look at the CPU speed and how many threads your system will support.

System services don't use up a lot of CPU, and if you are not doing internet stuff, your anti-viral package won't be doing much either. But the fewer threads your system will support, the more likely you are to have issues of CPU contention. Here, raw CPU speed helps because the time taken by the contenders for CPU time will be less as they will be able to finish their activity quicker.

A really GOOD system will have 6 or 8 threads (cores) and would be 3.0 GHz or faster. When a system has 1, 2, or 4 threads and/or runs less than 3.0 GHz, it is lower performance. Also, bitness figures into this discussion as well, since the 64-bit systems are usually configured for wider data bus architectures, bringing memory to the CPU and its internal caches in bigger gulps, thus making things appear to be faster that the equivalent 32-bit operation.

Again, the key is comparing past systems to current systems to understand performance issues. If it isn't Disk, Memory, or CPU problems then it has to be the software you are running and there are too many potential trouble-spots for me to write a broad-brush article on that subject.