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So that would be a SQL Server database, not an Access database. The question here is apparently about Access databases and not about applications developed in Access.

Not my phrase. It was used by Mike Smart at the start of this thread. In fact I try to avoid the term "alternate" and I would usually just say composite key. According to Google Books there are 69 database and data modelling books containing the phrase "composite alternate key" and 8780 books...

isladogs, Thanks for correcting my syntax. You are right. You said you understand the terms alternate and composite. What else would you call a key that is both alternate and composite? Do you believe those two terms are mutually exclusive? Oddly the author of this thread seems to think that...

A composite alternate key is just an alternate key that has more than one attribute (nothing to do with foreign keys). For example, this table has two composite keys: (a,b) and (c,d). CREATE TABLE tbl (a INT NOT NULL, b INT NOT NULL, c INT NOT NULL, d INT NOT NULL UNIQUE (a,b), UNIQUE (c,d));

A composite key is a key consisting of more than one attribute. An alternate key is just a key that isn't the "primary" key (alternate keys are sometimes called secondary keys, candidate keys or just keys). Unfortunately the power of myths often increases with age.

Where did this myth originate from? It is possible to create composite alternate keys and has been since at least 2003 (and probably before) as far as I know. There are multiple other misconceptions mentioned here but that is possibly the worst.

Umm, perhaps the fact that it is a niche product which Microsoft has left in suspended animation for over a decade. In the same period the market-leading products covering some of the same core capabilities (rapid application development, data management, data analytics, reporting) have seen an...

It's worth clarifying the difference between selling an application and selling a database. Despite the question that started this thread, I believe this thread has so far only talked about selling applications, not databases. Legally and practically they are very different things. Generally...

A common back end in Jet is not a client-server database. My recommendation is that you use SQL Server, Oracle or PostgreSQL.

Every database ought to be implemented on a client-server architecture. The technology is ubiquitous, cheap and simple so there isn't much reason to do anything else these days. What is your objection to a server-based DBMS?

Re: lower/upper case in password Here's a slightly more compact way of doing these comparisons: If Not password Like "*[0-9]*" Then err = err + "Password must contain at least one numeric character" + Chr(13) End If If StrComp(password, LCase(password), vbBinaryCompare) = 0 Then err =...

When using SQL Server best practice is to use Windows integrated security. Don't use SQL logins or passwords. You can grant only the permissions needed for each user. They don't need to have the ability to delete or update data unless you want them to. No need to save passwords for linked tables.

The choice of SQL won't necessarily make much difference to the reporting experience. Possibly it will make reporting run quicker but that may be all. The choice of reporting tool is what really matters. There are lots of great reporting tools to choose from: PowerBI, Tableau, QlikView. Any...

Access is not the right tool. How about using a web-based email service? I can't think of any good reason to develop your own messaging service. No disrespect but if you don't have something else more useful to do with your time then I think I would start looking for a new job.

Only if you enable the "Cascade update related fields" option. Tophan needs to enable that option on the relationship. Double-click on the relationship line in the Relationships window to see the option. Once that is done the update should be straightforward. As a rule, it usually makes sense...

Social Security Numbers and their ilk tend to provoke pointless arguments. I try to avoid discussing them for that reason. Same goes for hypothetical keys based on people's names and addresses.

In what circumstances in the UK would you use NI numbers as an identifier? I believe Tax and Employment are the only scenarios where NI number is commonly used. I can't imagine many companies (if any) asking their customers for an NI number and I suspect potential customers might be put off if...

In fact you have to compute Damerau–Levenshtein for each pair of values you want to compare, not just for each field (i.e. it's an "edit distance" function). Galaxiom's point I believe is that strict equality (which is what key constraints are about) isn't a very reliable way to compare...

There are lots of options: SQL Server, Oracle, MySQL. 75GB is a small database and any SQL DBMS can cope with that size of data without problem. The basics of databases really aren't so difficult so it's an opportunity to learn something. Or you could hire someone to help you.

The idea of identifying customers by name and date of birth seems to me far too unrealistic to be worth considering. What kind of business would want to ask their customers for their date of birth? True there are cases where the date of birth might be required for customers, healthcare...