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Sage 50 - Anti-Virus Configuration Guide
Configuring your Anti Virus to not interfere with Sage may dramatically improve your performance.
You need to do these changes on all workstations and the server.
- Add exceptions
- Force temporary file location for reports
- Disable for testing
Remember to do these on Workstations AND Server
Excluding Sage files from real time file checking is a great way to improve performance there are several different exceptions to do.
Data file paths
Ancillary file extensions
Application file paths
There are 2 sets of data paths to exclude,
The local data which is the demo data, local reports, program keys, are stored typically in C:\ProgramData\Sage (or on XP and earlier C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\Sage) As these are areas that users would not normally go into the folder C:\ProgramData\ (or on XP and earlier C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\) is hidden. You can make "hidden folders visible" by opening Windows Explorer and going to Tools>Folder Options>View>Hidden Files and Folders>Show Hidden Files and Folders You need to press the "Alt" button to see the menu in some versions of Windows.
The other path to exclude is the Actual Data Path.
You can find the Data path by opening Sage 50 and going Help>About>System Information>Directories>Data Directories
Not that if you change the way you access the file shared you will need to also change the exclusion.
For example my Data is in S:\Sage\ but S:\ is a mapped drive so I could also use a UNC name of \\fileserver\sageshare\Sage as my server also has a fixed IP I could also use the IP addess eg \\192.168.1.100\sageshare\Sage so whilst these all refere to the same thing, the antivirus software would need setting up for whichever one I was using
To be honest, I think that just about every one of these files would already be covered by the Data paths exceptions above, so, I am not sure they really help a lot,
| *.DTA *.DTH *.COA *.SLM *.PLM *.NLM *.ILM | *.BLM *.CLM *.DLM *.SLC *.SLI *.PRC *.PRI | *.NMC *.NMI *.BKC *.BKI *.SKC *.SKI *.IVC | *.IVI *.SPC *.SPI *.PCC *.PPI *.PCI *.REC | *.REI *.SAC *.SAI *.IPC *.IPI *.PDC *.PDI |
Sage changed a lot of the file extensions for reports and layouts in V13 / 2007 so there are two set of exceptions for report, you only need to do the ones for the version you are using
| Version V12 and below. | Version 2007 (V13) and above. | ||
| *.SRT *.SLY *.SLT | *.SLB *.RPT | *.report *.layout | *.letter *.label |
The last things to exclude are the Application file folders, these exclusions are probably the biggest security risk of all the changes so do them last and only if you think they are really delivering performance improvements that are worth having. You should only exclude these from "real time", "on access" scanning, they can be scanned as part of the regular overnight/batch checking process.
The directories you need to exclude for the sage executables are as follows, these are wild card exceptions so should be applied to all subdirectories as well.
For 64 bit operating system, you need to use \Program Files (x86)\ in place of \Program Files\
C:\Program Files\Sage\Accounts\
C:\Program Files\Common Files\Sage Line50
C:\Program Files\Common Files\Sage Report Designer 2007
C:\Program Files\Common Files\Sage SBD
C:\Program Files\Common Files\Sage SData
C:\Program Files\Common Files\Sage Shared
Force temporary file location for reports
When running reports, Sage creates temporary files, by placing these in a directory that is not scanned by the antivirus software you can reduce the delays caused by antivirus software.Make sure you use a local path I suggest making a folder in a path already excluded eg C:\Program Files\Common Files\Sage Report Designer 2007\temp to use.
Now all you need to do is to edit the registry to tell Sage to use the specified path.
If you do not know what you are doing in the registry editor you can break your operating system
Open the registry editor (regedit)
Go to the key
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\ODBC\ODBC.INI\SageLine50v17
If you are using a version earlier than V17 change the path appropriatly
Add a new string key called TempPathname capitalisation is important so make sure you do it correctly
in the value add the path you have chosen
You can check thing as when you run reports you should see files appear in the folder.
Note you will need to add a new key when you upgrade your Sage
If adding the exclusions has not improved performance on a large data set (especially reports like transactional TB), then it could be that you did not exclude things properly, perhaps you excluded things form the scheduled scan rather than run time scans, some antivirus software is broken, does not allow any exclusion or is too hard to fathom out.
To test this there are 2 things you can do,
- First is to disable the antivirus software for a short period to see if this improves performance, if it does, then you know you need to get your settings right.
- If it does not, or if there is not way to disable your anti virus then uninstalling it is the only way to be sure it is not slowing things down.
If all else fails, get a different antivirus software.
What do I recommend?
Well they all have faults, none is perfect. I would steer away from McAfee or Norton. I would avoid products with firewalls. I have had good results with the Microsoft Security Essentials product.
