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ACT! Technical
Support Knowledge Base
http://support.act.com/act_support/act2000
Compress
and Reindex the ACT! Database
At LEAST once
per week run a Compress and Reindex on your ACT! database.
1. Select Lookup, Everyone.
2. Select File, Maintenance.
3. In the Maintenance window, choose Compress and Reindex from
the choices. (You can also purge your notes and/or history for
a specific date range at this time by checking the Purge Notes
or Purge History boxes. Be sure to BACKUP first!)
4. Click OK after making your selections.
5. DO NOT interrupt the Compress and Reindex process.
Maintaining
your Hard Disk
The most important
action you can take to protect your data and keep your computer
working smoothly is to institute a regular maintenance routine
for your hard disk(s). You should include:
- Backup
- Disk Cleanup
to remove unwanted files or manually Deleting Temporary Files
and Emptying your Recycle Bin
- ScanDisk to
find and repair files
- Disk Defragmenter
to optimize the file system.
Become familiar
with these tasks, however you can schedule them to automatically
launch in Windows98 by clicking on Start, Programs, Accessories,
System Tools, Scheduled Tasks.
Backup
The backup
utility that comes with Windows 98 can be accessed by choosing
Programs, Accessories, System Tools, Backup and supports backups
to local, removable, and network drives.
Alternatively consider a Zip 100 or 250 drive, Jazz drive or
CD Writer. It doesn't matter what you choose, but be sure to
back up your data frequently.
Disk Cleanup
Deleting unnecessary
and temporary files from the TEMP environment directory enhances
the performance of your computer, and can help avoid corruption
of imports and synchronizations.
Use the Disk Cleanup Utility by clicking on Start, Programs,
Accessories, System Tools and Disk Cleanup.
Alternatively you can manually remote unwanted files as follows:
1. Delete Temporary Files
Close all open applications
In Windows Explorer, use the Tools, Find commands to find all
files with a .tmp extension and remove them. Then repeat the
procedure for all file names containing a tilde (~).
2. Empty the Recycle Bin by right clicking on the icon on your
desktop and choosing to empty.
ScanDisk
ScanDisk detects
and repairs disk errors including those in long filenames, file
allocation tables, folder structures, file system structure,
and the physical disk surface if you choose that option. Start,
Programs, Accessories, System Tools, Scandisk. Or click on Start,
Run, and type in ScanDisk.
Disk Defragmenter
Optimizing
the hard drive on a regular basis ensures its optimal performance.
Windows 95/98 provides an optimization application called Defrag.
The easiest way to run this is to click on Start, Run and type
in Defrag. (New in Windows 2000 is a native Disk Defragmenter
that works on FAT, FAT32, and NTFS.)
Known Issues in ACT!
Video Hardware
Acceleration
Reducing the
hardware acceleration for your video driver can increase graphical
response. Most recent computers come with high-end video cards;
ACT may have issues with these.
Font Size
Increasing
the displays font size (normal is 96dpi) will cause problems
in ACT!. This may cause reports to print incorrectly, and menu
items to pushed together.
Windows
Power Management
Power management
has caused several performance issues in the past, ranging from
the system clock slowing down to making the system appear locked
or frozen. Power Management is most often invoked on laptops.
RealTek
Network Cards
It has been
found that RealTek 8029 Network Adapters cause database corruption.
These issues can be corrected if you download and install the
most current driver.
Printer
Drivers
Printer Drivers
are needed and required by ACT!. Most print drivers use their
own proprietary print driver format. These formats differ so
much from an HP printer driver format that sometimes it causes
issues for ACT! If you think you have a printer driver issue
see the documentation on the Support site.
Examples: Reports, Labels, Envelope
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