Hello,

I'm new to Umbraco and have been asked to look at some performance issues, specifically speed issues which seem to be sporadic, e.g. at times it's rapid and others it's over 30 seconds.

The version is 4.0.2.1, which I think is probably quite old and in need of an update.

The site is not massive and the visitor numbers aren't huge, having a quick look around I noticed all macro cacheing is set to page but the period is 0, which I believe is disabled?

I suspect the problem is either:

1. application pool unloading dll's, etc after 20 minute timeout due to small visitor numbers

2. database optimisation

3. simply hosting

4. website/umbraco caching

Can somebody point me in the right direction, probably:

1. Whether application pool is likely to need changing

2. Whether I should enable macro caching (is there any other caching in umbraco to set)?

3. Any out of the box settings I should make to umbraco or the database

 I tried to check other settings, but while I was logged in as Admin I couldn't see any site settings, just templates, stylesheets and stuff.

oh, is there a simple way to modify passwords? I noticed there was no password quality checks on creating accounts and it's using plain text (who thought it was a good idea to give a password option storing in plain text!!!)

Thanks.

Neil.