Access On A Wireless Network - Making It Work

There are posts elsewhere on this forum about the adjustments you can make to Access to improve its performance on a wireless network, i.e. make sure you have XP SP2 and not an earlier version of XP, but the fact is that no programme will perform well on a network if the network isn't performing well. Here are a few things I've learned (the hard way!)

- Use USB wireless adapters, not card type adapters. One of the prime rules of wireless networking is to keep your adapter - and your Router - away from electrical equipment and metal objects, so why anyone even makes card adapters is beyond me.

- Place your adapters/Router as high as possible (above head height is best) using a USB extension lead for the adapters if necessary. Do not put them on or near metal filing cabinets!

- Think about line of sight when placing your equipment. If your Router and an adaptor are just on either side of a wall , opposite each other, the signal may only have to pass through, say, 6 inches of wall. If they are at opposite ends of their respective rooms, however, it may have to pass through several feet of the same wall!

-If there are other wireless systems nearby using the same channel as yours, change yours to a different channel even if the other signal is weaker than yours. Remember that you need to be 5 channels away from anyone else before there is 0% overlap in the frequencies. If you cannot achieve this because there are too many nearby networks, any difference is better than none.


I have a 9 user (each in a separate room) p2p network in my office running a split Access 2000 db. The place looks a bit odd with USB adapters stuck high up on the walls but it works. Only one user has the occasional hanging problem (about once a week) but she's using an oldish laptop with only 256k of RAM and it has to run Norton Internet Security at the same time. Three of the users have the db open more or less constantly, the rest have no problem or speed issues getting in whenever they wish.


Nearly forgot, our Wireless system is standard 802.11g. max distance from an adapter to the router is about 80 feet.

Sorry if any of the above is stating the obvious, thought it might help.