
Score quick wins with some changes requiring very little effort.
We provide you with basic and advanced suggestions for ensuring better performance of Microsoft Outlook running MacroView DMS / DMS Pro with SharePoint.
A smaller Outlook mailbox size will perform better, especially if your computer is a few years old. Start with the often overlooked Outlook ribbon Clean Up button and select the Clean Up folder. This will move all the redundant emails from your conversations to the Outlook recycle bin. You can set MacroView to automatically delete the emails from Outlook on completing the Bulk Save, or you can delete them manually as required.
Ensure that your Outlook recycle bin is empty and then run the Compact Now command to complete the mailbox housekeeping exercise.
Tip: Detach any PST files attached, as this will consume memory and slow things down.
Over time several add-ins would have been installed into your Outlook user profile. Each of these add-ins needs to be loaded into memory before starting Outlook. Add-ins that are no longer used still load, contributing to the slower startup of Outlook. Disabling the non-essential add-ins should see an improvement in start times as well as stability.
Ensure that your logging level for the MacroView client is set to exception rather than information, especially on a shared server disk system. Even on a single workstation, information level logging can noticeably slow things down as all current processes are being recorded to the c: drive.
Note: Only enable the information ‘transactional’ logging if requested by the support team.
Most likely, your Windows is running 64-bit with Office 32-bit. Ensure that your Outlook version supports LAA. LAA unlocks 300% more usable memory than usual. Use the Office 64-bit release, if supported by your organisation.
Tip: Use System Internals Vmma, available for free download, to determine the available application memory.
By default, recent versions of Outlook have the offline email cache set to 12 months. If you plan on archiving your older emails, we suggest caching them as it is much faster to save them when the emails are stored on your c: drive. This assumes that you have plenty of free disk space.
It is very tempting to increase your file list count from 50 upwards, as ‘scrolling’ is generally preferable to ‘paging’. We have seen cases where people have raised the setting well beyond 500 and then complained of slowness. To display 500 files on one page rather than the default of 50 takes much longer as more metadata details are needed to be retrieved. We recommend that you don’t change the default file list setting and use the column filters available in your file list. Alternatively, use the search this location feature with a metadata search term.
Going back a few years, performance problems were usually related to the processor or lack of system memory. Times have changed; especially with Windows 10, the hard disk has become the bottleneck. Starting Windows, compiling applications and ongoing updates means a solid state drive (SSD) is now a must-have.
Frequent Microsoft updates can be highly frustrating. However, there is no reason to continuously run updates. Delaying non-essential updates, in some cases, allows Microsoft to refine them further before they are installed. We recommend that you don’t have monthly updates enabled for Office 365 ProPlus, as these have been known to cause intermittent issues. The most practical version to use is the semi-annual release.
Some security programs continuously scan the entire workstation for threats leading to poor computer responsiveness. Making some minor changes to your virus scanner software can have a positive impact without compromising security. For example, the MacroView program files folder were already scanned on installation and are not updated during general use, so why not create an exclusion path for this location? We have seen greatly improved Outlook startup times when the exclusion path is set.
When sharing hardware resources for Azure Virtual Desktop, Citrix Xendesk, Remote Desktop Services and other virtualized environments, you need to ensure sufficient memory, high-speed disks and a suitable graphics adapter. MacroView software relies on Microsoft WPF to create its modern interface, which in some cases can be graphics display intensive. The MacroView client also passes most write operations via the %appdata% folder, which, when shared, could slow performance.
Tip: To minimise disk activity, ensure that logging for MacroView is set to exception rather than information.
Software usability can vary between internet programs. For example, when using a web browser or an email program, you generally won’t notice poor performance as they either work in the background or only transmit tiny files. Slow performance only becomes noticeable when downloading or uploading larger files such as emails and documents. MacroView products, due to their very nature, retrieve and save files frequently, so a good internet connection is required for SharePoint Online.
Note: Where possible, the MacroView product will cache ‘objects’ to minimise network activity. The MacroView client also utilises Microsoft technologies such as ‘shredded storage’ and the ‘cell storage service’, which significantly reduces storage requirements and network data traffic.
Happy Tuning! Feel free to share your experiences with Support@MacroView365.com
If you are experience performance issues for Exchange Public Folders or Outlook Shared Mailboxes then we would recommend that you review this blog post.
For any sales enquiries relating generating, managing or migrating emails and documents with respect to SharePoint, Microsoft Teams or OneDrive then please reach out to Sales@MacroView365.com