>Visual Foxpro 5.0 sp3
>I have a foxpro application that calls an OLE automation server that will runs out of process on the same computer, would this process utilize dual processeors on Windows NT workstation? Any thoughts?
>
>Sincreley,
>James Wieland

In general, yes, it should. However, you may not get anything like the benefit you might expect to get.

If you make a synchronous call to the OLE server, VFP will have to wait until the server finishes. To run the server call, the NT scheduler will examine utilization on the processors and choose the most appropriate one, probably the most lightly loaded. If the VFP thread is suspended, NT may choose to run the OLE server on that same CPU, especially if the other one is busy running another task, an NT service, or any of a myriad of other things. Also note the scheduler may switch the OLE task back and forth between the CPUs many times while it runs, depending on how each CPU is used at any given instant.

So, in a synchronous scenario, the second CPU will reduce the "average" load on each CPU and give the OLE server a (generally) higher percentage run time than on a single CPU system. However, if the second CPU is usually lightly loaded, you probably won't see much difference in performance.

If you make an asynchronous call, i.e. tell the OLE server to go off and do something without waiting for a response, you might see a significant gain in performance. You would have two tasks running simultaneously, rather than one (VFP) stopped waiting for the results of the other. In this case two heads will clearly be better than one.

One extra fly in the ointment with VFP6 (not 5) is the ability to create multi-threaded DLL servers. It's not applicable to you unless you're contemplating upgrading to v6.