Developer Tools

[huebner]

We are currently converting all of our Access 97 tables into Oracle (using a third party package titled "Scriptoria"), and would also like to convert the frontend to Access 2000.

Since both versions (97 & 2k) exist on most of our PC's, we were thinking it would be beneificial to deploy these db's using the developer tools, so that it wouldn't matter which version of Access were are running, and we could keep user's out of the backend.

My questions are:
1. Since we have to purchase the developer tool, should we purchase Microsoft's, or is there a better package like MDT2000?

2. If we use the developer tools to install the databases onto the user's desktops, when changes are made to the front-end, will we have to re-install the db's on every machine or can we install one version on our network? If using the network is the answer, are there performance issues we need to be aware of?

Any suggestions and comments would be appreciated.
Thanks

 

[Pat Hartman]

1. There are other tools that are reported to be better than the Microsoft Installation wizard. However, if you want to be able to install the runtime version of MSAccess.exe on those PCs that don't have the correct version of Access, you may need to purchase the Developer's edition anyway to get the correct license.

2. You can use a shared copy of the front-end but installing a separate copy of the frontend on each PC will give you some performance advantage. If your network people use a utility to "push" applications to the desktop, you can use that method to distribute your db (once you have made sure that everyone has the correct Oracle ODBC drivers installed). If you con't have a "push" program, you can create code that forces the user to download a "new" version when one becomes available. A simple method is to keep an Access table in the frontend db that contains the current version and date of your app. The startup form can run a query that compares the "local" table with an Oracle table and if they are different, tells the user how to download an update and then closes the db.

A word of warning though. Using the runtime version of MSAccess.exe and the whole installation process is problematic, especially if some other version of Access exists on the target PC. Be sure to search the archives here and also the Microsoft knowledge base to read all about the various "situations" (I won't call them bugs or problems) before you spend your company's money.