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sabrinakk

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Big file on a server

We have a very big MS Publisher file (90 Megabytes) on a server and me and my colleague open it and modify it every week. Our pc's run Windows 98 and of course the MS Office suite with Publisher. Now we cannot save it anymore, the program hangs in both pc's and the file remains unsaved. I know it is a big file and there might be a network congestion but it never happened in the past 2 years. What can I do? I tried to reinstall Publisher but it didn't help.

Avatar of Ajnin
Ajnin

Some things to try to test.

Can you open other publisher files and edit and save them. If no then you may have to uninstall the entire office suite then reinstall it.
Let us know what version of office your using.

Try doing a Save As and see if it will save to your C drive. If this doesn't work then the problem may be do to the file being corrupt. Since it is on a network you sys sdmin should be able to restore a good copy.

Also try doing the save as option on the network if the above worked.

Let us know what happens.
Regards
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ASKER

We are using Office 97 and we have no system administrators. I tried doing a Save as to my C: drive but Publisher hangs. Last week I tried to copy it on my drive, modify it and then moving it back to the server... the first time all this worked, now it doesn't work anymore, I can't save it locally.
Does it do it on only this file though, do you have another one to test to see if it locks up also?
Oh yeah,

Who backs up your data for you? You may have to restore this file if your able to save other publisher files.

Regards
Publisher locks up with big files... we have several other smaller files but we can save them. I think it's impossible that all those big files got corrupted.
Sorry, I forgot to say that we have 2 other files (85 mb and 60 mb) and we have problems with them as well.
This is odd as from what your saying it is also doing the excact same thing on another computer.

If it just started happening try rebooting to DOS and run
scanreg /restore
This will restore you registry just choose a date from when it was working.

Stop here and see if it has helped. If so stop

Try some system maintnance and see if it helps.

First delete all TMP files. Do a find on *.tmp and delete all that you find.

Run Disk Cleanup (under Programs\Accessories\System Tools) and be sure to have it remove all Temp Files and Temporary Internet Files.

Run msconfig and click the startup tab and remove any programs you don't need to start (have to have SysTray). Oh and definately get rid of FindFast if it is listed. I would advice Office Startup (OSA).

Also goto your Control Panel and open the system icon and click the Performance tab. Then click the File System button. And change the typical role of the computer to Network Server. (This does not turn your computer into a server it just tells windows to handle your memory differently. Should be done on any machine with 24mg of RAM or more.)

Scandisk & Defrag.

Stop here and see if it helps.

Run SFC. Be sure to have your 98 disk as this will check to see if any sytsem files are corrupted.

Reboot to DOS and run
scanreg /opt
This will optimize your registry. Then run
scanreg /fix
This will attempt to repair the registry.

Also there is a program provide by Microsoft called Eraser 97. You may need to uninstall Office97 and then run this program to have it removed completely. And then reinstall Office 97.

I'll check to see if Microsoft has heard of the problem but I won't be back till tomorrow. So maybe another exert could help some more.

Regards


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tonnybrandt

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I don't know how to do this with "canned" software such as you are using, but here is some insight on a problem that we had on a main frame, and how I solved it...

The IBM utility: "SyncSort" would not handle high volume data files when the individual records were quite long.

My solution was to set up an associated key file with very short record lengths.  The key file was kept in sequence by my adaptation of the "Shell-Metzner Sort".  It had pointers to the data location in the main file.

The beauty of this method was that the main file could be written sequentially, while only the key file was sorted.

Also, different sort sequences could be set up for the key file.

The system worked beautifully and was incorporated into many COBOL programs.  The actual PROCEDURE DIVISION code was only about a half page or so.  It was all self-contained, with no external calls.

Other sorting techniques could have been used, but the "Shell-Metzner" method seemed to work best in this application.  See any sorting reference source book.

PleaseNoSpam
Heh, Is the drive you are sharing now not being mapped? I would try disconnecting and reconnecting the drive letter you're sharing or possibly see id the server that file is on may be full?