Hi Roy, Mike, Monica and others interested in the performance of our
NVivo 7 software.

Thanks for your discussion around our NVivo 7 software and for inviting
our contribution. The NVivo 7 system specifications that Roy provided in
his email are from our website and are correct. Many NVivo users are
running their software on computers with these specifications and are
experiencing no issues.

However, we have also spoken to some users who are experiencing issues
with the performance of their NVivo software on computers that meet, and
often exceed, these requirements. We've found that there are many
factors that can affect the software's performance including:

*	The data contained within your project, including the number of
documents and the size of these documents.

*	Whether your software includes the most up-to-date service packs
- the most current update for NVivo 7 is service pack 4.

*	Whether or not you've run the 'compact and repair' function
that's included with NVivo.

*	Your operating system's virtual memory settings.

*	How well your computer is maintained. Is it overloaded with old
files or ghosts of removed programs? A fragmented hard disk can impact
the performance of your computer as it must work harder to retrieve and
save information.

*	How up to date your operating system is. NVivo's components and
subsystems such as SQL Server 2005 and .NET Framework 2.0 are provided
by Microsoft and these systems rely on an up to date environment to work
at their best. Operating system updates are provided via the Microsoft
website.

*	The other software that may be installed on your computer. Also,
having multiple applications open at once can reduce the amount of
resources available for NVivo 7. 

*	Whether or not 'plain text' is enabled across your project. (see
point below)

*	The volume of information contained within your nodes. Depending
on certain variables, you may experience reduced performance when
working with large nodes. To address this, NVivo 7 allows you to
automatically display large nodes in plain text. If you'd like step by
step instructions for changing this setting, please contact QSR directly
(our email address is provided at the end of this email.)

Also, with regards to the comments about memory leak from NVivo 7, the
software is built on the .Net Framework and it controls memory usage.
We've provided you with a link for more detailed information on how the
.Net Framework automatically manages memory:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/msdnmag/issues/1100/gci/.

We hope that this information is helpful, but we really do recognise
that some users are experiencing performance issues with NVivo 7, and
it's difficult for us to pinpoint a specific issue unless we are in
contact with them directly. If you find that this information doesn't
address the issues you're experiencing, we'd be pleased to have a member
of our Support team work with you directly. Please just get in touch
with a member of the team via email on [log in to unmask] and
they'll respond to you within one working day. Often we find that
working one on one with users is the best way to get the software
operating in a more satisfactory manner. We're here to help! Other
useful sources of information may be the QSR Forum:
http://forums.qsrinternational.com/ and the QSR website
www.qsrinternational.com.

With kind regards,

Sue

Sue Bullen  Training Consultant 
QSR International Pty Ltd

-----Original Message-----
From: qual-software [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of
Mike Mellody
Sent: Tuesday, 25 September 2007 4:33 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Ideal computer specifications for a smooth running NVivo7

On 9/25/07, Monica Barratt <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

> Leading on from a comment made to a previous thread about which
software
> packages would suit the poster's situation of limited resources in
Malawi -
> I am interested in your experiences with NVivo7 on different computer
> specifications.
>
> I'm a PhD student in Australia who has a university supplied Dell
laptop
> (running WinXP, 1.4Ghz processor, 512mb RAM, 40G hard drive). Although
this
> is technically enough power to run the program, I've only just begun
putting
> data into it and it is starting to crash and/or run very slowly. I
haven't
> really tested it yet as there is much more data to be entered.

I think, as David said, you need at least 2 GB of RAM, a dual core
processor and a fast hard drive but unlike David, I haven't found
NVivo 7 acceptably stable. I've had to use it with a computer that
exceeds David's standards and still have crashes which appear to be
due to low memory - although no other program, including memory-greedy
GIS software, reports a problem. I don't know how well memory handling
and memory paging is implemented in NVivo but certainly there appears
to be a memory leak (as detected with the freeware program MemLeak). A
telltale sign of this is that if you use NVivo for a long time, close
it down and then open ArcInfo, say, then ArcInfo runs very slowly and
even crashes on occasion - something that never happened to me until I
started using NVivo on the same machine. Now when using NVivo, I
routinely stop every hour and reboot; it's annoying but the improved
performance is worth it. I also always reboot after ceasing work on
NVIvo for the day. Since I started this routine, I've had a lot fewer
NVivo crashes and a lot less problems with other programs like MS
Office and ArcInfo used after using NVivo.

Perhaps it's just my computer, but others using the program have
reported similar problems.


Mike
Michael Mellody
Ecclesia Knowledge Management