You may experience decreased performance when you access network resources or when you use Microsoft Access in Windows 2000

You may experience decreased performance when you access network resources on your Microsoft Windows 2000-based computer. You may also experience the following symptoms of decreased performance when you use Microsoft Access on your Windows 2000-based computer:

• The .mdb file takes longer to open than you expect.
• Queries take longer to run than you expect.
• The process to access network resources takes longer than you expect.

This problem occurs because Windows 2000 does not cache file-path information from long file names when you access network resources.

Hotfix information

To resolve this problem, obtain the latest service pack for Windows 2000. Or, apply the hotfix that is described in this article, and then enable the following registry value: Important To modify the default behavior of Windows, you must configure this registry subkey as described in the "Registry information" section. A supported hotfix is now available from Microsoft, but it is only intended to correct the problem that this article describes. Apply it only to systems that are experiencing this specific problem.

To resolve this problem, contact Microsoft Product Support Services to obtain the hotfix. For a complete list of Microsoft Product Support Services telephone numbers and information about support costs, visit the following Microsoft Web site:Note In special cases, charges that are ordinarily incurred for support calls may be canceled if a Microsoft Support Professional determines that a specific update will resolve your problem. The usual support costs will apply to additional support questions and issues that do not qualify for the specific update in question.

Prerequisites

You must have Windows 2000 Service Pack 4 (SP4) installed to apply this hotfix.

Restart requirement

You must restart your computer after you apply this hotfix.

Hotfix replacement information

This hotfix does not replace any other hotfixes.

Registry information

Warning If you use Registry Editor incorrectly, you may cause serious problems that may require you to reinstall your operating system. Microsoft cannot guarantee that you can solve problems that result from using Registry Editor incorrectly. Use Registry Editor at your own risk.

To force Windows to cache path information for long file names, you must create or modify the following registry subkey so that your system can use the hotfix that is contained in this package. To do this, follow these steps:

1. Click Start, click Run, type regedit, and then click OK.
2. Click the following registry key:
   HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\MRxSmb\Parameters
3. Double-click the InfoCacheLevel value.
   
   Note If InfoCacheLevel does not exist under the Parameters subkey, follow these steps to create the InfoCacheLevel value:
   1. Right-click the Parameters subkey, point to New, and then click DWORD Value. Type InfoCacheLevel in the new value input area, and then press ENTER.
   2. Double-click the new InfoCacheLevel value.
4. Click Hexadecimal, type 10 in the Value data box, and then click OK.
5. Quit Registry Editor.

Note The following are valid values in hexadecimal notation for the InfoCacheLevel value:

• 0: Disables caching for all files.
• 1: Enables caching for files with short file names (8.3) - this is the default value.
• 10: Enables caching for all files.

File information

The English version of this hotfix has the file attributes (or later) that are listed in the following table. The dates and times for these files are listed in coordinated universal time (UTC). When you view the file information, it is converted to local time. To find the difference between UTC and local time, use the Time Zone tab in the Date and Time tool in Control Panel.

To work around this problem, use short names for files and folders. File names must follow the 8.3 naming format. This means that they must be no longer than eight characters, with a three character extension, as in the following example:

Microsoft has confirmed that this is a problem in the Microsoft products that are listed in the "Applies to" section.