Large Directory Problem

Hi!

I'm collecting .jpg images in a single directory. I am going to be storing references to them in a database so that I can display them on a form and print them on reports. The platform is Windows NT 4.0 SP3
(Server and Workstations). The application will be in Visual FoxPro 6.0
or Visual Basic 6.0 (at this point undetermined). The database server will be Oracle. Currently an image capture app is creating the images.

At this time I have well over a thousand images in the directory. When I open the directory in the NT Explorer or a window I get the flashlight waving and it takes several seconds to retrieve the directory. The image capture application is taking minutes to write the images to the server. (We're replacing the capture software soon because it also trys to thumbnail all the images if you go to its file/open dialog).

Is there anything I can do to speed NT's access to this directory? When I write my app is there anything I need to be aware of that will help/hurt performance in retrieving these images. Some people in my organization feel that saving the images in Oracle BLOBs (Binary Long OBjects) will server us better. Is that true?

Also, for the NT Gurus, I have given the users on the imaging stations Read and Write priviledges on the directory but not Change. If they open an existing file and try to modify and save it they are told the file is read only. If they create a new file and give it the name of an existing file, it will overwrite. Is this a bug? Have I missed something in the permissions?

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Best!

Randall

[Just my Dog and I at the Edge of the Universe]
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