Is Access 64bit stable (1 Viewer)

[jacko6]

Hi,

I have a number of Office 365 32bit Access apps that are used all day, every day in commercial environments.
Accde front end on user PCs
Mdb backend hosted on server.
Heavily coded including Win APIs.
3 x 3rd party ActiveX components.

I'm happy to say that these apps have been incredibly reliable for over 10 years.

Some of my clients are standardising on Office 64bit and I'm going to have to migrate my apps to 64bit accordingly. I understand what needs doing wrt Win API changes for 64bit compatibility and of course I need to use 64bit ActiveX components.

After making initial changes to the Win APIs to include the PrtSafe keyword and removing the 32bit activex components (and code) my apps compile in Access 365 64bit without issue. From here I've been working on updating data types etc in the Win API's. The problem I'm having is that while I've been working in the code window (64bit) Access has crashed 3 times in 2 hours. It just hangs as I'm typing, closes and creates a backup copy of the accdb.

This has got me worried about the general stability of Access 365 64bit (or any 64bit version). I'm hoping it could just be that I haven't updated the API data types yet but I'm not actually running the app, just working in the code window.

I'm interested to hear the experience of others with Access 64bit. Is it reliable in a commercial environment? Are there known issues with its stability even if recommended development standards have been adhered to?

 

[tvanstiphout]

Both bitnesses have the same stability and challenges, in my experience. I cannot choose one over the other.

 

[isladogs]

Agree with Tom. Whilst 64-bit Access has few advantages for most users, it is just as stable as the 32-bit version.
It sounds likely that not all your APIs have been properly converted. Adding PtrSafe will allow the project to compile but you also need to convert all handles/pointers from Long to LongPtr in all declarations and Type statements so that the code works correctly.

 

[AHeyne]

As of the lack of resources of 32-Bit processes and it's known effects to Access 32-bit (topic LAA) the 64-bit version of Access should be more stable.
I use it for years without any trouble with heavy Win API usage. Many customers do so too.

But that requires
- the 64-bit ActiveX components you mentioned must be reliable. Nobody can really ensure that as long as one did use it self.
- the 32-bit APIs must be adjusted and tested properly for 64-bit usage (take care with UDTs (TYPE) and its members used in APIs and pointers especially).

Regarding your crashes:
- This absolutely can be caused by APIs (maybe faulty 64-bit code adaption?)
- Maybe your version of Microsoft Access isn't fully patched? That can be a reason too.
- I very often backup/decompile/compress my Access databases during development. From my experience this supports stability a lot.

 

[jacko6]

Thanks all for your feedback. Good to hear 64bit Access is reliable.