Hardware Requirements

ClinicOffice is a Microsoft Windows program and runs on 10/11 and all current versions of Windows Server. It has full support for both 32-bit and 64-bit architectures.

The following table shows the recommended and minimum computer specifications…

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	Recommended	Minimum
Operating System	Windows 10/11	Windows 10
Processor	Intel Core i3 (or higher) or AMD Ryzen X (or higher)	Intel Pentium Gold or AMD Ryzen G Series
Memory	8 Gb (or more)	8 Gb
Screen	1920 x 1080 resolution (or higher)	1680 x 1050 resolution
Network	1000mbit (Gigabit) wired network	100mbit wired network

As a general rule, any new computer with an Intel Core i3, i5, i7 (or equivalent AMD processor) will be fine, as will most decent computers which were purchased within the last couple of years.

Network Requirements

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

Although ClinicOffice will work over a wireless network, we STRONGLY advise against it. ClinicOffice requires constant network availability and a poor wireless connection will introduce stability issues. Furthermore, even the fastest wireless network will still perform MUCH slower than a wired connection.

More information about 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 (a) when you open the document and (b) when you save it. A database application like ClinicOffice requires constant network access and is continually performing database lookups (such as checking for new messages, reminders, scheduled tasks etc.)

Stability Issues – Even with a good connection, wireless networks can still drop out. They will usually reconnect quickly, but this will still 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 if your wireless connection drops while ClinicOffice is trying to save a record. 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 theoretical rate of 1000mbits per second (mbps) while older wired networks run at a rate of 100mbps. By comparison, the maximum speed of most wireless networks is 56mbps. The true speed however is usually much lower especially if your network is encrypted (which it should be) or if the signal strength is variable. In our real world performance tests, wireless networks are usually around 10 times slower at accessing your database than a wired network.

Dedicated Server Specification

A dedicated server is not required to run ClinicOffice over a network – one of your PCs can act as a ‘pseudo-server’ by hosting the database for the other computers.

However, if you are going to have five or more users simultaneously accessing your database, then a dedicated server running the ClinicOffice Server Edition will improve the performance. See below for our recommendations for a dedicated server computer…

	Recommendations
Operating System	For most clinics Windows 10/11 will be perfectly adequate. ClinicOffice does not require a ‘SERVER’ edition of Windows, however if you do require Windows Server for other applications, it will run happily on Windows Server 2012 R2 and above.
Processor	We would recommend an Intel Core i7 or i9 processor (or an Intel Xeon which is essentially the same thing for dedicated ‘Server’ computers).
Memory	The more the better. A minimum of 16 GB is recommended.
Screen	Largely irrelevant as it won’t be regularly in use. However we do recommend actually having a monitor attached to your server. Some companies install servers without any monitor leaving you to remotely connect to the server, which is fine until something goes wrong and you can’t see what’s happening!
Network	We very strongly recommend 1000mbit (Gigabit) wired network which requires CAT5e (or higher) cabling.

What Technology does ClinicOffice use?

ClinicOffice 2005 (and previous versions) were written using the excellent Delphi programming language with Elevate Software’s DBISAM serving as the database engine.

With the recent advent of newer hardware technologies (particularly 64-bit processors and operating systems), we decided 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# for the Microsoft .NET Framework. ClinicOffice v5 is an evolution of v4 and uses the same architecture. We used two database engines: ElevatedDB which is ideal for the Startup and Professional Editions, and PostgreSQL for the Server Edition.

ClinicOffice v6 only uses the superior PostgreSQL as the database engine, using much of the same technology as v5, but with many additional 3rd party features added.