Summary
The most attractive application can be extremely frustrating to use if its performance is less than acceptable. Because Access itself requires significant resources, you must take the responsibility of making your code as lean and efficient as possible.This chapter focused on several techniques for improving performance. Probably one of the easiest ways to improve performance is by modifying the hardware and software environment within which Access operates. You learned about adding RAM, defragmenting a hard disk, and tuning virtual memory and other settings to dramatically improve the performance of your applications. You also looked at using the Performance Analyzer to quickly and easily identify problem areas in your application. Finally, the chapter focused on data-design fundamentals, coding techniques, and techniques to optimize forms and reports.By following the guidelines covered in this chapter, you can help ensure that you are not inadvertently introducing bottlenecks into your application. Although any one of the suggestions included in this chapter might not make a difference by itself, the combined effects of these performance enhancements can be quite dramatic.