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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