I know it's easy to use Access tables and queries from a stand-alone compiled Visual Basic application. How about reports (or forms for that matter)? What I want to do is have a stand-alone compiled Visual Basic application that allows the user to open reports (and/or forms) stored in an Access database, even if they do not have Access installed on the machine. Is this possible?

I can easily do the entire application in Access, but then it could only be used by those who have either full Access or the Access runtime module installed.

You can open these objects from VB, however the method used to open them is to use OLE to automate Access. That requires Access to be installed on the Client PC since an instance of Access must be opened to "communicate" with the Access objects.

So the short answer is - if you want to use Access objects, you need either the retail version of Access or the run-time version installed on the Client PC. There are no other options.