The future of Access (1 Viewer)

JohnPapa

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Excuse me for posting in this thread. I wanted a reply from people who are heavy users of Access.
Basically, where is Access headed? I have a product with Access 2013 and every few years I upgrade to a newer version (the previous was Access 97). I also use Microsoft 365, but do not use the Access included in it. I have a separate version of Access 2013, because I could not use Access 2013 within Microsoft 365. I saw somewhere that Access 2019 only works with Windows 10 and it may be discontinued.
Please, if someone can direct me to an overview of the various versions and what the future holds I would appreciate it.
John
 

theDBguy

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Hi John. The only thing I know was that there are no more perpetual licenses for Access. But, the version of Access that comes with M365 will continue to get upgrades.
 

CJ_London

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Access is very different from the other office apps in that the (backend) file is multi user. All the other apps, you download a file and whoever opens it first is the only one who can update it - everyone else opens a different copy which has to be saved under a different name. I believe there are some changes in office 365 which tracks open versions of the other office apps and effectively synchronises saves, but that is nothing like the same thing.

You'll have ask MS about the future of access, all I can tell you is they are committed to it and there are no plans to discontinue it.

With regards Access 2019 and win 10, you might be confusing the bitness. Access comes in 32bit and 64bit versions. 64 bit versions won't work on a 32bit OS, but 32bit will work on a 64bit OS - the trend is to move toward 64bit although at this point in time the only users who will benefit from 64bit office is excel power users.

You might find this link helpful

 

The_Doc_Man

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I did a web search and could not find any announcements about Access itself. There is an impending termination of support for all features related to AccessWeb, which never caught on. That feature is effectively approaching end-of-life. Access itself, however, does not seem to be going away.
 

Pat Hartman

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If you have O365 with Access installed, I would suggest using that version so you at least can take advantage of new features that come down the pike. If you are developing for others who have 2013, then it is safer to stay with the 2013 version so you won't accidentally add a feature that A2013 doesn't support.

The "world" is completely obsessed with web stuff because it seems to be "new and shiny" so client/server development gets treated as a second class citizen. If you don't need to support anonymous users as web pages do, then there is no advantage to using a web development platform. That is why Access is alive and well and MS will continue to support (and even sometimes "improve") it. Just because you can run a web app on your phone doesn't make it a tool you would ever want to use for development or any kind of real work. MS lost sight of that with Win 8 which was a monumental failure because it broke the way users expected desktops to work. If you actually need remote access to your applications, there are a couple of sound methods that don't require rewriting the app using browser technology.
 

Isaac

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Maybe what you remember hearing was something about not being able to use Access [2019, etc] on a Mac, but only on Windows.

I'm not privy to any fancy Microsoft or MVP teams, but I do not get the impression that Access in general is NOT going away any time soon. They are pushing Power Apps a lot, and I'd love to convince my employer to let me start using them, but I think Access is here to stay for.....who knows.
 
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The_Doc_Man

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Access is in the unenviable position of having a popular product with a niche market and they can't easily replace it. In fact, it is probably why Access 64-bit didn't take advantage of extra addressing space. First, the re-write costs would be incredible. Second, It would be incredibly embarrassing for them to have a product that could seriously compete with SQL Server in terms of capacity.
 

JohnPapa

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Glad to see that there was no obvious answer to my question. We have an Access product (dental software) and the same functionality on a cloud based product which we developed using VB .NET.
Many clients prefer the desktop Access product for various reasons including flexibility. The Access product uses the Runtime version of Access and the advice by someone above to use the current 365 version of Access is not practical, due to incompatibility of Access version and 365 version of Access..
I will ask Microsoft and report back to this thread.
 

CJ_London

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you might have incompatibility between runtime versions - perhaps you are trying to run a 32bit access app with a 64bit runtime? Or perhaps yoour code has not been adapted for 64bit?
 

isladogs

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Several points here:
1. Although the retail version of Office 2019 only runs in Windows 10, perhaps counterintuitively Office/Microsoft 365 does work in Windows 7 and will continue to do so until 2023. See https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us...indows-7/adc3115c-dbb5-4c07-9592-9151da962c68.
2. Almost all versions of 365 contain Access. It is once again a central part of the MS Office strategy. There is in fact more development work currently going on in Access than for many years. For example a new SQL editor will be released in a few months. Access is definitely not about to be scrapped
3. MS have already confirmed there will be at least one more retail version of Office (2022?) though whether it will still be possible to buy Access as a standalone retail product is another matter.
 

vhung

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Excuse me for posting in this thread. I wanted a reply from people who are heavy users of Access.
Basically, where is Access headed? I have a product with Access 2013 and every few years I upgrade to a newer version (the previous was Access 97). I also use Microsoft 365, but do not use the Access included in it. I have a separate version of Access 2013, because I could not use Access 2013 within Microsoft 365. I saw somewhere that Access 2019 only works with Windows 10 and it may be discontinued.
Please, if someone can direct me to an overview of the various versions and what the future holds I would appreciate it.
John
You like Access much
>on the run i use 2010 if my system break's down
>2013 has nice feature and mangeable too
>i try 2019 but i can't work with well, there's limation when setting up
>as of today i keep on 2016 but indeed some controls don't work anymore,
but i remain with 2016
>sure if 2013 works well on your system then remain because it is nice vesion...
 

JohnPapa

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you might have incompatibility between runtime versions - perhaps you are trying to run a 32bit access app with a 64bit runtime? Or perhaps yoour code has not been adapted for 64bit?

I use 32-bit throughout
 

JohnPapa

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Several points here:
1. Although the retail version of Office 2019 only runs in Windows 10, perhaps counterintuitively Office/Microsoft 365 does work in Windows 7 and will continue to do so until 2023. See https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us...indows-7/adc3115c-dbb5-4c07-9592-9151da962c68.
2. Almost all versions of 365 contain Access. It is once again a central part of the MS Office strategy. There is in fact more development work currently going on in Access than for many years. For example a new SQL editor will be released in a few months. Access is definitely not about to be scrapped
3. MS have already confirmed there will be at least one more retail version of Office (2022?) though whether it will still be possible to buy Access as a standalone retail product is another matter.

I have Access on 365 and I use Access 2013 and its runtime for development. I cannot use the going Access 365 for development, since it is not a fixed version, as it gets upgraded to later versions of Access. Am I missing something?
 

JohnPapa

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You like Access much
>on the run i use 2010 if my system break's down
>2013 has nice feature and mangeable too
>i try 2019 but i can't work with well, there's limation when setting up
>as of today i keep on 2016 but indeed some controls don't work anymore,
but i remain with 2016
>sure if 2013 works well on your system then remain because it is nice vesion...

My question is what happens when I cannot use Access 2013 any more? Will there be a standalone version which I can use for my development?
 

isladogs

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I have Access on 365 and I use Access 2013 and its runtime for development. I cannot use the going Access 365 for development, since it is not a fixed version, as it gets upgraded to later versions of Access. Am I missing something?
You may well be missing something.

Normally, you should use the oldest Access version in use by your clients.
For that reason I normally develop in A2010 though I also have A365 for testing purposes.
I will continue to do so after support for 2010 ends next month. Although the support period is ending, Office 2010 will carry on working

However Access 2016/2019/365 are all variants of version 16.0. References used with 365 will work fine with e.g. the retail version of 2016.
So if your clients are all on one of those variants, you can safely use A365 as long as you don't use any of the latest update features in your apps..
 

isladogs

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My question is what happens when I cannot use Access 2013 any more? Will there be a standalone version which I can use for my development?
If you have a license for 2013 you will still be able to use it once the support period ends (in 2023?)
 

JohnPapa

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If you have a license for 2013 you will still be able to use it once the support period ends (in 2023?)
The question is whether I can have a standalone version of Access (not within 365) when I need to move forward from A2013.
 

isladogs

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Depends when you 'NEED' to 'move forward from 2013. If, last like time, you do so 16 years on, I doubt even MS know their plans for 2029.

You can buy a retail version of Access 2019 on its own (though not easy to find) or purchase retail Office 2019 containing Access.
And, as I've already stated, there will be at least one more retail version of the Office suite probably for 2022.
 

vhung

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My question is what happens when I cannot use Access 2013 any more? Will there be a standalone version which I can use for my development?
we can still use access but more likely the updates be limit
> Mainstream support for Access 2013 ended in 2018. Extended support will end in 2023.
> isladogs mention "If you have a license for 2013 you will still be able to use it once the support period ends (in 2023?)"
> Access 2016 Extended Support End Date 10/14/2025
> LibreOffice and Apache OpenOffice imitate programs from Microsoft Office Suite and offering as free software – equivalent alternative to Microsoft Access.
> but still Microsoft continued to develop the desktop database software, releasing Access 2019 in September 2018
> Access 2019 Extended Support End Date 10/14/2025
> hope Microsoft will continue to support Access
 
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JohnPapa

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Depends when you 'NEED' to 'move forward from 2013. If, last like time, you do so 16 years on, I doubt even MS know their plans for 2029.

You can buy a retail version of Access 2019 on its own (though not easy to find) or purchase retail Office 2019 containing Access.
And, as I've already stated, there will be at least one more retail version of the Office suite probably for 2022.

Many thanks. I would need to move from A2013 when I can no longer use it, depending OS etc. If it works why move.
 

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