Database CD Distribution

[doobie]

Afternoon

Apologies if this is in the wrong place, but I've looked around and can't find anywhere else that's relevant.

Essentially, I have a large reference database that I'd like to send to a fairly large number of people, preferrably on CD. Copying and pasting information into another format, such as Excel isn't an option.

My question is, how could I setup the content of my CD so that everyone could access it, even if they don't have Access? Could I include a copy of Access Runtime on the CD? Would that enable people who don't have Access to view the data on the CD? If so, would there be licensing implications if I did this?

Sorry if that's convoluted, but I'm not technical.

Thanks

 

[ghudson]

You can not run a db directly from a CD. The .mdb must be able to create the .ldb record locking file so the db would be opened in a read-only state if launched from a CD. WinZip is easy to use to create self-extracting files to copy the files to the users computer.

You need to create a runtime installation package that the user would launch from the CD to install the runtime version of Access onto the users computer and also your mdb.

It is an easy process if you have the developers edition for Access 97 - 2002 or the Microsoft Office Developer Extensions for Access 2003.

Search the forum for there are a lot of threads related to your quest.

 

[on-2]

If it is a reference database have you considered a data access pages and making it available on the web?