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I've had nearly every problem with Tradestation you can have. I was running TS4 when the first version of TS2ki came out. I thought I just had to have some of the new features for my trading. I spoke with Omega before the program was released and bought a new computer to run it on. I got a Dell dual PII 450 Mhz machine with 256 RAM and a SCSI drive running Windows NT4 SP3. SP1 worked fine for a few days then it was hell from then on. I moved up to NT4 SP4, SP5 and SP6 then Windows 2000 Pro SP2 as they were available and TS2ki SP2,3,4,4c,5 patch then got the SP5 on CD from Omega. I beta tested the new Global Server used on the SP5 download upgrade from 4c and it helped a lot. The Full SP5 program CD works a bit better I think. Unlike many others I didn't want to take up space with two computers so I gave my old one away. With dual 19" monitors my desk has enough on it. I run ton of junk on this computer including TS2ki SP5 with few problems and never a crash that req!
uires a reboot. I did add more memory recently so I have 512 now and added Dual PIII 850 processor to give the old machine more snap. I do what Mark Simms does and backup automatically using Macro Scheduler each afternoon the data files to a different hard drive. I run TSk2i on the C: and my data is on the E: and my backup is on the F: along with junk like temporary internet files and 400 pagefiles. With windows 2000 Pro you can simply reroute from E: to F: for data for TS2ki in a few seconds. It takes too long if you have a problem to copy the files back to the E: I use DTN satellite 8080 box and have about 20,000 symbols real time. I have a TurboCom high speed port for the DTN box to come in on. I optimize systems during market hours with no problems.
Below is a list of things I think are important.
I don't use any workspaces from older versions of TS2ki.
I did a clean install of Windows 2k Pro when I put TSk2i SP5 CD on the machine. I did use my old data however.
All signals and indicators are verified. All strategies are verified.
If I change a signal I turn off the system in the chart before using verify, then verify it, then verify the strategy then turn the system on again.
Sometimes a system report will hang and draw diagonal lines on the window so I just close it until I can reboot charting. Charting will work for days even under this handicap.
If I leave town I only leave the Global server running. I do have a UPS and the GS is set to reload if the batteries die in a power outage. This has worked great for at least 5 week long trips and 3 10 day trips.
If charting gets messed up due to some fancy stuff, I should not do during the day, I use the task manager to end task on all the Tradestation processed except the Global Server and the maintenance scheduler. Most of these are named or... something. One is something like ortc. Some of the TS2ki processes take a while to shut down but I just close them. They have to be closed to crank TSk2i up properly again. Here are some of them.
server.exe = Global Server and I don't every turn it off in the task manager.
oredit32.exe = Power Editor. Don't turn it off but it doesn't matter if you do.
orschd.exe = maint. scheduling program. Don't need to turn it off.
ts32.exe = charting. Yes turn it off and make sure two copied are not running if you tried to start charting after a problem.
ORQuote.exe = Quotemonitor. Yes turn it off for sure.
ortrade.exe = Who knows but for sure turn it off.
ortc.exe = who cares but this is important to turn off.
My global server always works fine. The only problem I ever have is if it is task ended by loss of power to computer (UPS deals with this really well) or if I'm stupid and end task in the task manager. Bad mistake and you will then have to wait while it reindexes when you open it. This is why I have a backup from yesterday so I can change to the backup data fast. My data is over 10 gig so it is too big to copy around fast.
Most of you know all this but I have very few problems. Maybe one a month and it is always my fault. Sometimes I optimize my data drive on the weekend as this speeds up the loading of data into charting a good deal. Once a week works fine for me. I never let the drive I have TS2ki data on reach 50% of capacity. Drives are cheap so now I have 10 gig of data on a 40 gig drive. This seems to help a bit but it makes it really easy to defrag and you don't need to do it very often. I would like to do it each weekend but it probably only happens once or twice a month.
If I was going to do anything differently I would do my testing on a different computer. When I say I run lots of junk here is some of it.
TS2ki (9 or 10 workspaces with 7 or 8 charts and at least 10 indicators updating each tick on each chart), Outlook, Power Editor, Office 2000 with word open and excel, The island, Datek on a browser and usually 2 or more browsers more open, atomic clock, winpins, CD creator, Norton virus protection, WS_ftp Pro, Hypersnap, Qucken 98, Quick Books 2002 Pro, Macro scheduler 6.3. ISDN and 56K connections.
I guess I should mention I never used Windows 98 but have fixed several friends computers with 98 on them. Finally I put Windows 2000 Pro on several of the 98 machines and it loads and works much better on all of them than 98 did. It is much faster to put Windows 2000 Pro on a machine clean that to fix all the registry errors in 98 and all the conflicts, especially the hidden ones, and download new drivers in most cases.
That is all I can think of. I hope it is of some help to someone.
Jimmy
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