Stand alone MS Access applications

[davesmith202]

I want to discuss he creation of stand alone MS Access applications. If I create something in VB6, it is quite simple because you just get an exe file. Simple. But when it comes to Access, don't you end up with a whole bunch of other files that could interfere with another installation of MS Access on someones system? What happens if they have a different version of Access on their PC to the version you created your Access application in?

My fear is that if you distribute an Access application with all the run-time files, it could **** up someones PC, especially if for example you have Access 97 run-time files and they already have Access 2003 installed.

Would love someone to help clarify this for me.

Thanks,

Dave

 

[marleymanner1]

Here is an opinion for you. With the runtime files, you get the extensions and DLL's as well, so I wouldn't think that these would interfere with another version, simply because they are written differently. I would only think that they would be a problem if they had the same names as the other versions' files. Could that happen, and does it happen I think is the question here. I personally don't know, but thought I would share this with you anyway. Good luck with it.

 

[Rachael]

Hi Davesmith202, here's my two cents worth!

I have been distrbuting access db's for about 5 years, firstly in access 2000 and recently in access 2007. I don't have any problems with version conflicts as I always install the 2007 runtime as part of the install package (even if they have a fullversion already, the installer doesn't seem to check for this like the old 2000 package and deploy did so I make it always do it). It doesn't seem to interfere at all. The only thing that does happen if a client has an earlier version of access is if they want to use that version for some other purpose it does a quick reconfigure, not one seems to complain (I have over 400 clients). If you are using 2007 then the package and deploy is all part of the access deal and the runtime can be freely distributed (and downloaded from the web). Prior to 2007 you had to spend money on the developers kit to get the pakage and deploy and the rights to distribute runtime.

Hope this helps,

Rachael