Opinion on Access 2007

[Darryl Kerkeslager]

I suggest to anyone who wants to know about Access 2007, that he or she
download the Trial Version (it runs for free for two months) and
explore and test it himself or herself.

Will it play nicely with my existing Access 2003 installation, and will it
uninstall cleanly?

 

[Lyle Fairfield]

Will it play nicely with my existing Access 2003 installation, and will it
uninstall cleanly?

Dream along!

 

[Lyle Fairfield]

Hi Allen/Rick,
I do not have A2007 installed yet but I find it hard to believe that no
prop/method exists to access the plain text component. I think one of you
mentioned earlier that the formatted text is actaully stored as HTML. If so
then there are dozens of HTML to whatever conversion routines on the Web.
Hopefully there will be something in VB that can be ported easily to Access
VBA.

I suppose we could always try the new (in Access 2007) PlainText
function.

 

[Lyle Fairfield]

I suppose we could always try the new (in Access 2007) PlainText
function.

Function PlainText(RichText, [Length]) As String
Member of Access.Application

The old Object Browser still works.

 

[lyle fairfield]

Thanks for your comments, David.
Responses embedded.

It's quite basic HTML, used to format the text, not a full HTML page.
Therefore there is no header, no CSS. Use Div for paragraphs. Not
particularly nice, but it works.

*_
This Response created in Access 2007 Rich text Box_*.

1. seems
2. to
3. have
4. same
5. /capabilities/
6. as
7. word
8. from the *popup* menu
9. that is

oh dear, am I posting in HTML? ... I'm so ashamed!

 

[David W. Fenton]

[]

Overall, from what you've written, it seems to me that A2K7 is a
disaster similar to A95 -- much worse than A2K.

Not sure you would say that if you had done some more extensive
testing, David. There's some seriously useful functionality here,
and the future of Access includes all this stuff.

But A95 was a similarly huge release, with the introduction of VBA
and all that entailed. The potential for that was HUGE, and the
whole future of Access was completely changed by it.

Because of many of the little things that
are just "there" and don't need to be programmed, developing in
A2007 will be faster than developing similar functionality in
previous versions.

The improvements to the report designer alone sound like enormous
productivity improvements.

I worked with both the beta of Access 95 and Access 2007 for many
months before release, and 2007 does not have the stability
problems (frequent crashes) that 95 did. I had not worked on the
beta of 2000, but actually gave up on it after it was released.
Certainly 2007 is not there yet, but at least the starting line is
within view.

Well, the difference may be that most of the real problems with A2K7
are BY DESIGN, whereas most of the problems with A95 were just plain
old bugs. Maybe it *is* closer to A2K, where about half the major
problems were BY DESIGN and half were bugs.

 

[Allen Browne]

Yes: PlainText() works fine.

--
Allen Browne - Microsoft MVP. Perth, Western Australia

Reply to group, rather than allenbrowne at mvps dot org.

I suppose we could always try the new (in Access 2007) PlainText
function.

Function PlainText(RichText, [Length]) As String
Member of Access.Application

The old Object Browser still works.

 

[Larry Linson]

I suppose we could always try the new
(in Access 2007) PlainText function.

Killjoy!

 

[f_l_louw]

Hi Allen,

We have an A2000 ADP app that runs in our branch offices in 100+
countries. A2000 was a great technology for us, but it is time to move
on. I was really looking forward to A2007, and was glad to see that
ADP continues to be supported.

Then the bad news. The first time I opened a form bound to a simple
stored proc like:

CREATE PROCEDURE dbo.spselTableName
AS
SET NOCOUNT ON
SELECT * FROM dbo.TableName

Where TableName is a simple reference table with less than 10 fields
and a dozen records, It took more than a minute to open! I put a trace
on to see what was happening, and I noticed loads of code like this:

select object_name(sotblfk.id), user_name(sotblfk.uid),
object_name(sotblrk.id), user_name(sotblrk.uid) from sysreferences
srfk,
sysobjects sofk, sysobjects sotblfk, sysobjects sotblrk where
srfk.constid =
sofk.id and srfk.fkeyid = sotblfk.id and srfk.rkeyid = sotblrk.id and
user_name(sofk.uid) = N'dbo' and object_name(sofk.id) =
N'FK_ForeignKeyTableName_TableName_PrimaryKeyFieldName'

It looks like A2007 is interpreting the foreign key relationships in
the SQL database. In our SQL 2000 database (1400 tables, about 3000
relationships) each of these calls generates about 100,000 reads. That
is really, really nasty. It is even worse in SQL 2005. A2000 never
did this, so the same form is lightning fast in A2000, but dead slow in
A2007.

What happened?? IMHO, this problem kills ADP as a usable technology
for corporate development. The most attractive upgrade path for us
would have been A2007, but now we are looking at a complete re-write of
our app. Not so nice.

Any suggestions?

Thanks,
Francois Louw

 

[Lyle Fairfield]

Hi Allen,

We have an A2000 ADP app that runs in our branch offices in 100+
countries. A2000 was a great technology for us, but it is time to move
on. I was really looking forward to A2007, and was glad to see that
ADP continues to be supported.

Then the bad news. The first time I opened a form bound to a simple
stored proc like:

CREATE PROCEDURE dbo.spselTableName
AS
SET NOCOUNT ON
SELECT * FROM dbo.TableName

Where TableName is a simple reference table with less than 10 fields
and a dozen records, It took more than a minute to open! I put a trace
on to see what was happening, and I noticed loads of code like this:

select object_name(sotblfk.id), user_name(sotblfk.uid),
object_name(sotblrk.id), user_name(sotblrk.uid) from sysreferences
srfk,
sysobjects sofk, sysobjects sotblfk, sysobjects sotblrk where
srfk.constid =
sofk.id and srfk.fkeyid = sotblfk.id and srfk.rkeyid = sotblrk.id and
user_name(sofk.uid) = N'dbo' and object_name(sofk.id) =
N'FK_ForeignKeyTableName_TableName_PrimaryKeyFieldName'

It looks like A2007 is interpreting the foreign key relationships in
the SQL database. In our SQL 2000 database (1400 tables, about 3000
relationships) each of these calls generates about 100,000 reads. That
is really, really nasty. It is even worse in SQL 2005. A2000 never
did this, so the same form is lightning fast in A2000, but dead slow in
A2007.

What happened?? IMHO, this problem kills ADP as a usable technology
for corporate development. The most attractive upgrade path for us
would have been A2007, but now we are looking at a complete re-write of
our app. Not so nice.

Any suggestions?

Thanks,
Francois Louw

Perhaps we should all read and explore a bit more and report our
findings.

I too have found my ADPs so slow as to be useless in Access 2007.

I haven't tested this solution enough to venture an opinion as to why
or how, but I have found that a newly created (in 2007) ADP operates
just as quickly in 2007 as other ADPs do in 2003. When I import forms
and reports from the old 2003 created ADP to the new 2007 created ADP
they work just as quickly as before.

This has worked for two ADPs here, one connected to a local SQLExpress
Server, and one connected to a remote SQL-2000 server.

 

[Allen Browne]

Perhaps someone who uses ADPs can comment on this.
Thanks for posting.

 

[ManningFan]

Or you can get the full version of Office 2007 for free from your
favorite torrent site. ;o)

 

[aaron.kempf]

yeah how fucking DARE you spread misinformation on ADP?

we should have _HELPED_ the JAPS invade your wimpy-ass 'country' in WW2


-Aaron

 

[Larry Linson]

yeah how fucking DARE you spread mis-
information on ADP?

Among the rankings of those who have "spread misinformation" here, you are
"right up there," aaron. If anyone took your ranting seriously, you'd easily
fall in the category of "disruptive poster." (Another name for "disruptive
poster" would be "troll".)

we should have _HELPED_ the JAPS
invade your wimpy-ass 'country' in WW2

Keep trying, as there are probably other nationalities you haven't publicly
insulted yet -- but with your vast talent in the area of insult, I'm sure
you'll get around to covering them all.

Larry

 

[Francois Louw]

I checked out your suggestion, and creating a new ADP in 2007 and
importing all objects rather than opening one created in 2003 or 2000
definitely improves performance. However, the trace still reveals the
selects against sysobjects. One commonly used reference table in one
of our databases has 38 FK relationships. Each one generates a select
against sysobjects, 98,000 reads each time. That makes 3,724,000 reads
just to open the form.

Ok, the form is not opened very much, being reference data that isn't
acessed very often, but 3.7 million reads is still nasty.

 

[Francois Louw]

asinine and ignorant. what a delightful combination.

 

[Lyle Fairfield]

I checked out your suggestion, and creating a new ADP in 2007 and
importing all objects rather than opening one created in 2003 or 2000
definitely improves performance. However, the trace still reveals the
selects against sysobjects. One commonly used reference table in one
of our databases has 38 FK relationships. Each one generates a select
against sysobjects, 98,000 reads each time. That makes 3,724,000 reads
just to open the form.

Ok, the form is not opened very much, being reference data that isn't
accessed very often, but 3.7 million reads is still nasty.

I tried responding on Google a few minutes ago but the posting seemed to
fail. I apologize if this is a duplicate (and even more if it appears to be
but is not.)
I know very little of tracing.
There seems to be no easily available utility accompanying SQLExpress
(2005) for reading trace files.
SQLExpress maintains a default trace unless it is turned off.
I wrote a couple of Sprocs, one to read the location of the default trace
file and another to return its contents in table form.
I fooled with the ADP for two hours with that task and opening various
forms and views as a means of testing.
My trace table has 466 rows. The time-date information covers the time I
was working with the ADP. It seems to have a row for each action I took.
There was no evidence of scanning the SysObjects table.

Perhaps we are not talking about the same thing?

Perhaps we did not create our new ADP (in Access 2007) in the same way. I'm
embarrassed to tell how I do it, as it seems "Hackish". Perhaps you have
discovered the easy, approved way and will tell us?

 

[Lyle Fairfield]

yeah how fucking DARE you spread misinformation on ADP?

we should have _HELPED_ the JAPS invade your wimpy-ass 'country' in WW2

Why spoil your helpful contributions with this nonsense, Aaron? You
have plenty of knowledge; you can be very helpful; why cover this with
the darkness of anger?

Yes, I know; for a long time you pointed out the strengths of ADPs and
the errors of those who denigrated them. You were ignored or derided.
Your statements were twisted.

After years of that many would feel like lashing out.

But is that effective? Does it work? Does it result in a greater or
lesser likelihood that your position will be considerd?

I think ADPs are fabulous. Once you get into them, you forget MDBs. But
I've rejected them because of my failure to find any sound way of
controlling, beyond the scope of the ADP, the permssions which their
users must have. Recently I've come to believe, (but I'm not 100% sure)
that MS-SQL/ODBC connected Access mdbs have the same potential for
misuse of permissions. If that's true then I'm back on the ADP
bandwagon.

 

[Tim Marshall]

yeah how fucking DARE you spread misinformation on ADP?

we should have _HELPED_ the JAPS invade your wimpy-ass 'country' in WW2

I didn't see any smileys.... so...

You are an ignoramus of the highest degree. The Aussies were dying
fighting "the JAPS" (as you call them) up to a year after the Americans
declared victory in 1945. Of course, you knew that. Boy, if the whole
world was as knowledgeable as you are, what a place it would be... You
must be an advisor to the current American president.

Regardless of where Allen is posting from, to attack someone who has
given so much to the Access development community requires a public apology.

 

[Francois Louw]

My database is in SQL 2000, and I used the SQL 2000 Profiler utility,
checking for TSQL events of type SQL:StmtCompleted, with a filter for
my mahine name as HostName. After starting the trace, I then just open
the form, and sit back to watch the fireworks. The profiler shows the
TSQL commands executed by Access, along with the number of database
reads generated by each one, and some other statistcal information.

I use Profiler extensively to see what IO Access is generating on the
SQL server. Access 2000 ASPs are remarkably well behaved, and generate
very clean, pretty efficient TSQL code. I just wish Access 2007 would
do the same.

Btw, SQL 2005 has the same utility in the managment studio. I'm not
sure about the express version though.

The way I created my ADP in Access 2007 is: Office Button. New. Browse
for the location of the database (hit the folder icon). Change the
"Save as type" to ADP.

Thanks,
Francois Louw