Act 2000 appears to lock up PC for 5 ~ 10 minutes, then will load.

I have a customer who has Act! 2000 and Winfax. They have been using these apps for quite some time now. Everyone is on a Windows 98 SE machine, the server is NT4 SP6. All of a sudden, whenever they start act - (the first time only) their pcs will appear to lock up...no mouse movement...no hard drive activity, then, in 5 or 10 minutes...act finishes loading, and works fine. This happens on all 6 workstations. I opened the default database (the one that is installed with the program for learning purposes) and rebooted the computer so that the first database opened would be local instead of server-based. It still locked up. I reinstalled act on one workstation...same results. I un-installed, rebooted, reinstalled on another workstation...same results. I rebooted, closed winfax, and the virus program, and did control-alt-delete until nothing else was running, started act...same results. The only thing that anyone there did that may (probably) have anything to do with this issue, is one user, who favored winfax for her addressbook, was forced to comply with the company standard (act) and imported to act from winfax. Nobody there is sure if the timing is related, but it probably is. I ran live update on both winfax, and act, and both said it was current, and nothing was updated. These are the only network apps running on their network: WinFax, ACT, and CA innoculatIT. Most PCs are Compaq Deskpros...P3, 866 MHz. I did not try uninstalling winfax, or the virus program...hopefully I don't have to. Does anyone have any ideas? Extra info that may be relevant: The pcs were originally locking up while loading windows, I held down shift while booting, and determined it to be something in the startup folder (because the delay did not happen) so I hit each icon from the startup folder until it happened, and the shorcut that caused it was Act speed loader. I was hopeful that it was only something with the speed loader, so I removed it from the startup folder, rebooted, and clicked on the act icon...locked up for about 5 minutes. I also removed one pc from the network by unplugging the network cable, and rebooted (after setting the database to the local one) and it still locked up, without being connected to the network.

 

I'm not sure I completely understand what you mean by when they start Act. Does it hang at the splash screen? or when opening the database?

Check all of the preferences (Edit > Preferences) and see if there is any reference to the network, like default locations for file types or the Default contact layout, etc. etc.

It's possible that maintenance needs to be done on the database, such as reindexing, or it could be that a file being pointed to in the preferences is damaged.

 

It hangs as soon as you click on the icon. Nothing pops up on the screen, the mouse freezes, the pc appears frozen...then, like magic, act finishes loading, and everything is back to normal...this takes about 5 minutes.

 

The only thing I can suggest is to uninstall Act, then, before you reboot, go into explorer and delete the Act folder under Symantec. You could delete the entire Symantec folder unless you have another Symantec product like Winfax in there too. If a pop-up asks if you want to delete a common file that might be shared go ahead and delete it since you'll be reinstalling anyhow, that way you get a fresh copy of the file.

Delete the Act folder under My Documents as well. A corrupt file under either directory could cause problem. What has me puzzled is that it's happening on all machines....

Have you tried reindexing the database? Also check the properties of your Act shortcuts to make sure it's not pointing at a shared network file.