K
Keith Obermeier
I have about 2200 users on OS 10.3/Office 2004+SP1 with homedirs stored on a
WIN2K server authenticating off of an OS X 10.3.5 server.
My iBook (wireless) users have been complaining ever since we have upgraded
to Office 2004/OS X about it taking up to 5 minutes to "first launch" Office
applications.
After many steps of troubleshooting I have discovered that *any* Office 2004
app will create an 18 MB Entourage database in ~/Documents/Microsoft User
Data/Office 2004 Identities.
If you crunch the numbers, 20 students hitting one 802.11 access point with
one 100MB uplink, each creating/caching a 18 MB file, you quickly conclude
that 18 MB databases accessed over wireless is a bad idea.
Next factor in that we have 2000 users sitting on a 100GB server. This
means that I will have 36 GB tied up on the server for unused Entourage
databases.
I have found that if I remove /Applications/Office 2004/Office/Microsoft
Database Daemon it will no longer create the database.
This breaks entourage, but for my students that will not be a problem. My
bigger problem is that if the 18 MB database already exists, it will be
loaded every time a user comes back to an iBook to use an office app. So
now I have to remove the daemon from every computer in my network to
prevent users from getting new databases whenever they open office on a
eMac. Then I can delete the existing database files.
Has anybody found a better way to get M$ Office 2004 to be a better
wireless/network citizen?
Is there anyone at Microsoft who will listen to us Mac folk so they can fix
their software?
--Keith Obermeier
Mac Network Admin
Jackson Local Schools
Massillon, OH
WIN2K server authenticating off of an OS X 10.3.5 server.
My iBook (wireless) users have been complaining ever since we have upgraded
to Office 2004/OS X about it taking up to 5 minutes to "first launch" Office
applications.
After many steps of troubleshooting I have discovered that *any* Office 2004
app will create an 18 MB Entourage database in ~/Documents/Microsoft User
Data/Office 2004 Identities.
If you crunch the numbers, 20 students hitting one 802.11 access point with
one 100MB uplink, each creating/caching a 18 MB file, you quickly conclude
that 18 MB databases accessed over wireless is a bad idea.
Next factor in that we have 2000 users sitting on a 100GB server. This
means that I will have 36 GB tied up on the server for unused Entourage
databases.
I have found that if I remove /Applications/Office 2004/Office/Microsoft
Database Daemon it will no longer create the database.
This breaks entourage, but for my students that will not be a problem. My
bigger problem is that if the 18 MB database already exists, it will be
loaded every time a user comes back to an iBook to use an office app. So
now I have to remove the daemon from every computer in my network to
prevent users from getting new databases whenever they open office on a
eMac. Then I can delete the existing database files.
Has anybody found a better way to get M$ Office 2004 to be a better
wireless/network citizen?
Is there anyone at Microsoft who will listen to us Mac folk so they can fix
their software?
--Keith Obermeier
Mac Network Admin
Jackson Local Schools
Massillon, OH