Runtime

[Bruce]

In work we are changing over from Office 97 to Office 2003. To save money it
has been decided that in future only a few people will have the full Access
program the others using the Access files will use some sort of view
facility called Runtime.

At the moment I create the Access programs & send a shortcut to the users
and of course any subsequent alterations such as Reports etc are experienced
by all those using it. How will this be done in future.

Bruce

 

[Barry Gilbert]

Presumably, you have the Access Developer's Extensions. This will allow you
to distribute the Access runtime without Access licenses. To deploy them, the
Developer's Extensions allows you to create an installer. This installs the
Access runtime and your mdb/mde on each client. Once the initial install is
done, you can deploy changes to the mdb by copying over the mdb to each
client. The trick them is how to do this automatically without going through
a full install every time.

We use a small application called StartMdb, downloadable from here:
http://www.granite.ab.ca/access/autofe.htm

FMS also has a utility to do this:
http://www.fmsinc.com/products/startup/index.asp

HTH,
Barry

 

[Douglas J. Steele]

Barry's already told you about the runtime (and you can get more information
at http://www.granite.ab.ca/access/developereditionfaq.htm)

I just thought I should make a couple of comments based on how I'm
interpretting some of what you've written.

It sounds as though you've currently got multiple people using the same MDB
file. That's not a good idea. Your application should be split into a
front-end (containing the queries, forms, reports, macros and modules),
linked to a back-end (containing the tables and queries). Only the back-end
should be on the server: each user should have his/her own copy of the
front-end, preferably on their hard drive.

Your comment about "subsequent alterations ... are experienced by all those
using it" implies that currently your users are making changes to your
application. Unlike Access 97, users can no longer make design changes to
the application (forms, reports, etc) unless they have exclusive access to
the database. (This change happened in Access 2000)

 

[Bruce]

Bit more detail: The databases are used so the end users can add note ,
ticks to check boxes & all this information goes back into the Maindata
Table. We've had around 30 programs running for over 3 years with no
problems. I was just wondering how I keep this simple using Access 2003 &
Runtime.

We are all on the same XP server with only 2 people with the full Access
package the others will have this Runtime thing.So when I write the program
do I create a shortcut and email round the team or is there some other way.

Thanks Bruce

 

[Douglas J. Steele]

Did you check any of the references you were given? You should be able to
find answers there.