Split Database

[SAK]

Split DB Suggestions Needed

Howdy, following hearty recommendations from some fine folks on this forum I split a DB I have on the agencies server.

I kept a copy of the FE on the agencies server for the users to do their thing, and transferred a copy of the FE to my hard drive at home for remote use and design work.

Later, at home I wanted to upgrade the FE. After about a half hour of trying to tweak the FE and sitting, sitting, sitting while the 4.0 KB/Sec connection nearly put me over the edge waiting for the data transfer while connecting to the BE I decided that just wasn't going to work.

So I reestablished a non split back up and am now back to transferring the entire non-split DB back and forth from agency server to my local hard drive so I can quickly and efficiently make adjustments.

I'd like to run a split DB but my remote location and lousy connection make it a pain to work with.

I'd like to run a split DB but how can I get around this connection conundrum?

Thanks in advance.

 

[llkhoutx]

Have you tried zipping the mdbs before downloading?

 

[Kevin_S]

SAk - there are numerous ways around this but I'll give you two quick answers:

(1) Replicate the DB at home by keeping a BE/FE setup at home, then when you make changes to the FE at home simply save the FE and then copy the updated version to the server when you get to work....

(2) Get PC Anywhere software. PC Anywhere allows the user to remote connect to different pc's through a network connection and work directly on the connected machine...

HTH,
Kev

 

[SAK]

Thanks for the responses.

To clarify, I have network connection at home but just so very slow to run the FE at my location connected to the BE on the agencies server that it's a pain and not practical.

I lean toward transferring FE/BE back and forth with relinking. However, it's my users in the office who will have stress relinking themselves. No one in the office is very familiar with Access.

Thus I lean toward automatic relinking via VBA. I am base level competant with VBA and could insert and likely modify code for that if it is available.

I will search through this forum for such code, but if someone could provide a quick link in the event I can't find anything that would be appreciated.

Thanks

 

[rpadams]

Assign virtual drive -- link is automatic

Not elegant - just quick and dirty

One way to do this is to write a very small autoexec.bat on the your home computer that assigns a subdirectory to a drive letter that matches the server. For example, keep the home copy FE/BE on a local drive such as C:\myprograms. If your network drive is F:, the batch file would have the line

subst F: C:\myprograms

When you make the links to the BE they will point to F:, but this is OK since the home computer is being tricked into pointing to the same place as the worksite.

Some of the old-timers out there will recognize this as an old DOS trick when networks first came into use. Developers reversed this so they could write network software on their own PC's.

This WON'T work if your worksite maps different drive letters for different users at random or dynamically. In that case, you would have to use the UPN name for the worksite computer. I have a small home network that I configure as needed but it's a lot more work.

 

[neileg]

Kev's suggestion of PC Anywhere is a good one. Using this, you are only passing screen refreshes and key presses over the connection, not data or code.

A more sophisticated answer would be to use Terminal Server but this would require more setting up. We use Terminal Server to provide homeworkers with full access to our systems.