Pioneer Software

ClinicOffice v4 PC Specifications

ClinicOffice v4 will run on Windows 2000, XP, 2003 or Vista and it also has full support for x64 machines (i.e. 64 bit processors with Windows XP x64 or Vista x64).

Windows XP still seems to perform better than Windows Vista, but COv4 is none-the-less 100% Vista compatible. Furthermore, with the recent release of Service Pack 1 (SP1) Microsoft have fixed a lot of issues with Vista and no doubt it will continue to improve.

This table outlines both the recommended and the minimum hardware required to run COv4.

	RECOMMENDED	MINIMUM
Operating System	Windows XP	Windows 2000
Processor	Intel Core2Duo (or higher) - or - AMD Athlon X2 3000 (or higher)	Intel Celeron D 2.4 Ghz - or - AMD Sempron 2.6 GHz
Memory	1 Gb (or more)	512 Mb
Screen	1280 x 1024 resolution (or higher)	1024 x 768 resolution
Network	1 Gb (Gigabit) network	100 mbit wired network

As a general rule of thumb, any new 'entry level' PC will be fine, as will the majority of PCs that are less than a year or two old.

Network Requirements

Whenever possible, we recommend a wired Gigabit (1000mbit) network for running COv4 over your local area network (LAN). The second best solution is a wired 100mbit network which will also perform well.

Although ClinicOffice v4 will work over a wireless network, we advise against it. Database applications (like ClinicOffice) require constant network availability and a flakey wireless connection can introduce stability issues. Furthermore, even the fastest wireless network hardware will still perform much slower than a standard wired connection.

More information on Wireless Networks...

Running ClinicOffice over your local area network is not the same as opening a Word document or Excel spreadsheet over your network. In those scenarios, the network is only accessed [1] when you open the document and [2] when you save it.

As a database application, ClinicOffice requires constant access over your network as it is continually performing database lookups as well as regularly checking for new messages, reminders, scheduled tasks etc. etc.

Stability Issues

Even with a good connection, wireless networks can still drop out. They will usually reconnect quickly (sometimes without even notifying you) but this can cause problems if ClinicOffice was trying to access the database at the time.

The worst case scenario is that you could potentially suffer data loss or even corruption if your wireless connection drops out while ClinicOffice is trying to save a record for you. ClinicOffice does have safeguards against this, and data loss/corruption is incredibly rare, but it is still something to bear in mind if considering a wireless network.

Performance Issues

A wired Gigabit network runs at a constant rate of 1000mbits per second (mbps) while older wired networks run at a constant rate of 100mbps.

By comparison, the maximum speed of a wireless network is 56mbps. The true speed however is usually much lower (around 20mbps) especially when if your network is encrypted (which it should be) or if the signal strength is variable.

This means that a wireless network will usually be somwhere between 5 to 50 times slower at accessing your database than a wired network.

Dedicated Server Specification

If you are going to have more than 5 computers simultaneously accessing the same database, we recommend that you consider having a dedicated server computer and using the ClinicOffice v4 Server Edition.

We tend to recommend Windows XP or Windows 2003 Server as the best operating system for a dedicated server machine.

	RECOMMENDED	MINIMUM
Operating System	Windows XP / 2003 Server	Windows 2000
Processor	Intel Xeon 2GHz (or higher) - or - AMD Opteron X2 (or higher)	Intel Core2Duo - or - AMD Athlon X2 3000
Memory	2 Gb (or more - ideally 4 Gb)	1 Gb
Screen	1280 x 1024 resolution (or higher)	1024 x 768 resolution
Network	1 Gb (Gigabit) network	100 mbit wired network

What Technology is used in ClinicOffice v4?

ClinicOffice 2005 (and previous versions) were written using Borland's excellent Delphi programming language (http://www.codegear.com/products/delphiforwin32) with DBISAM (www.elevatesoft.com) serving as the database engine.

With the recent advent of Windows Vista and newer hardware technologies (64 bit processors, x64 operating systems etc.) it seemed like a good time to move away from the older Windows 32 bit development and move ClinicOffice over to Microsoft's .NET Framework (pronounced "dot-net framework").

Hence, ClinicOffice v4 was rewritten from the ground up in a different language called C#. COv4 also gives customers the choice of the DBISAM (www.elevatesoft.com) database engine which is ideal for smaller installations and a PostgreSQL (also called 'PGSQL') Client/Server database engine (www.postgresql.org) for larger installations.

ClinicOffice v4

Overview
Screenshots
Pricing & Ordering
Specifications
Download FREE Trial
Updates & Downloads
Technical Support