Concurrency/write issues

C

Chris

I am designing a Flash training program. For this project, I am
considering the purchase of 3rd party software that allows interaction
with an Access .mdb file. My prior programming experience is with C#
and SQL, but that is beyond the scope of this project. I have a few
simple questions about Access...

This training program will be installed on 8 "kiosk" computers. If I
set up a centrally located .mdb (on a network share), will I be able
to save data to it from all 8 kiosks? The amount of data is very
small (name, address, chapters completed, etc) and the save intervals
are very infrequent. It is highly unlikely that 2 people would save
data at the same instant, although I believe I could compensate for
that possibility in my code. Does Access support this kind of
multi-user access?

Also, are there any licensing requirements for distributing an .mdb
file with this training program? MS Access would not be installed on
the kiosks or the file server that held the .mdb, but of course
someone at the school would have a licensed copy with which to view
the collected data.

I have been having a hard time tracking down this type of info on the
web. If someone could help with some suggestions or links, it would
be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,
Chris
 
D

Dirk Goldgar

Chris said:
I am designing a Flash training program. For this project, I am
considering the purchase of 3rd party software that allows interaction
with an Access .mdb file. My prior programming experience is with C#
and SQL, but that is beyond the scope of this project. I have a few
simple questions about Access...

This training program will be installed on 8 "kiosk" computers. If I
set up a centrally located .mdb (on a network share), will I be able
to save data to it from all 8 kiosks? The amount of data is very
small (name, address, chapters completed, etc) and the save intervals
are very infrequent. It is highly unlikely that 2 people would save
data at the same instant, although I believe I could compensate for
that possibility in my code. Does Access support this kind of
multi-user access?
Click to expand...

Sure, no problem. There is, of course, the possibility of a write
conflict, but you can trap that and deal with it in your code. I gather
that your application won't actually be an Access application, but will
be written in some other language and write to a Jet (.mdb) database.
Thus, Access itself won't really be involved, but you'll probably be
using DAO or ADO to write to the database.
Also, are there any licensing requirements for distributing an .mdb
file with this training program? MS Access would not be installed on
the kiosks or the file server that held the .mdb, but of course
someone at the school would have a licensed copy with which to view
the collected data.
Click to expand...

You can distribute the .mdb file freely -- there are no licensing
requirements. The kiosk PCs will need to have the appropriate data
access components installed, but I don't think that's an issue either.
I have been having a hard time tracking down this type of info on the
web. If someone could help with some suggestions or links, it would
be greatly appreciated.
Click to expand...

Unfortunately, I don't know where you'd look for this information, if
searching microsoft.com doesn't turn it up.
 
Top