Good Housekeeping offering Advice with Microsoft Dynamics GP?

Originally posted in 2011 – But still relevant!

On my flight home to NYC today I was reading through the July 2010 copy of Good Housekeeping and right there with how to organize your garage, how to load a dishwasher and how to strip paint off wood was a section on “How to Unfreeze Your Computer.”

I read the small article and agree with it for most home users. The article said if your machine is frozen, press Ctrl + Alt + Delete keys to open the Task Manager and select the program that is “Not Responding” and “End task.” This is not bad advice.

BUT…. 

If the program “Not Responding” is Microsoft Dynamics GP (or Great Plains), do not be so quick to “End Task.” Since GP uses a SQL Server database, not all work is actually performed on your machine, some is performed on the server. If work is being performed on the server then GP may say “Not Responding” because it’s waiting for something (from the server.) Just be careful about ending task on GP.

Good Housekeeping is a great magazine, one of my favorite reads, but it is not intended to be your advisor on Microsoft Dynamics GP!