JohnPapa beat me to it.
"Access" is NOT a RDBMS no matter how many people call it that. Jeese Louse, Even the Microsoft SQL Server people call "Access" a database and think "Access" is their competitor!!!!! rather than a complementary tool to create applications. Jet and ACE are RDBMS engines. Access is a rapid application development (RAD) tool that can use ANY RDBMS that supports ODBC to store application data. In fact, it was the SQL Server team that actually announced to the world the death of "Access" in 2000 and in 2007. Why? They controlled Jet (and still do) and in 2000 (or maybe 2002), MS added a desktop version of SQL Server which could easily be installed along side Jet to be used for application data. So, in their minds, Jet was dead and so "Access" was dead. Then again in 2007, the Access team took a copy of Jet and made it into ACE, thereby removing the SQL Server team from the path of development dependency. So again, the SQL Server team sang from the rafters "the witch is dead". I don't understand at all their complete inability to understand that "Access" is a comparable tool to use to create applications that use their precious SQL Server as the BE. For some reason, they persist in considering "Access" a challenge to their world dominance.
The confusion lies with the pathological connection between Jet/ACE and Access.
1. Even thought there are TWO complete script based design mechanism for Jet/ACE using DAO and ADO, "Access" is the graphical tool used to design database objects. Think of "Access" in this case as the equivalent of SSMS (SQL Server Management Studio).
2. Even though "Access" can use application data stored in ANY RDBMS that offers ODBC, "Access" must use a Jet/ACD .mdb/.accdb to store its own objects such as forms/reports/etc. So "Access" always was and always will be completely dependent on some desktop database engine for its own internal "data". This is the reason why your "Access" FE can never be compiled into an .exe. An .exe cannot hold data and cannot be modified on the fly. The whole point of an .exe is that It NEVER gets modified, whereas an .mdb or .accdb gets modified every time you open it, just because that's the way "Access" works. Not to mention that even the FE usually has tables even if they only hold menu items or the current version of the app.