I end up doing some repair/upgrade work on some of my commercial databases from my home. I connect via TCP/IP over the internet using the IP address of the FM Server. I end up late at night doing quick fixes and such when the users are off.

Question - there are times I have to add fields, for example a calculation field and it takes FOREVER to add the field after I write the calc. I expect this, no problems. But when there's 3,000 or more records this can make for a long night of watching the hour glass.

So... I was wondering if it slows the process if I do some other operations of the same machine while I wait for the field to go through it's processes. Like right now I'm on the internet while waiting on a calc field to be added. Is this really significantly hindering the process or should I just odze off and nap like I usually do?

Are you browsing the internet on YOUR machine, or the machine that you are remotely logged in to?

If you're browsing on your own system, it should not affect your remote connection in the instance you've described above. Creating a calc field can and will take a while when your file has a lot of records, but all your own PC is doing in that situation is sending the command that this is the calc field that I want, ok then create it. The remote computer (or the FM server itself, if it's a different machine) is doing all the coding.

I hope this helps.

Actually, on my machine - the guest - is the one I was wondering about slowing th eprocess. It takes avery long time, soometimes 40 minutes or more when I create a new calc in a large file. Sometimes I get so frustrated that I just drive to the site and do it locally because it only take a few minutes at mosst that way.

I understood that the work process when accessing the server remotely were -

1. Guest sends command to Host(create calc, etc.)

2. Host processes the command by grabbing the raw data only, sending it to the guest machine to crunch the numbers, then

3. Results are sent back to the server and stored as data.

This process goes one record at a time... and the network connection makes all the difference in the world. So my question is, while I'm sitting around letting the process happen for a few thousand records... will a little extra network traffic on my end make any noticeable difference?