The Old Joel on Software Forum: Part 4 (of 5)

Access/MSDE question...

Over in the "Ask Joel" forum, Ged Byrne said, "Now Access is dependant upon the SQL Server desktop edition. Deployment is so much harder." Not to doubt Mr. Byrne's statement, but can someone help an Access 2000 user catch up? When did Access become reliant on the MSDE?

Thanks.

Andrew Burton
Monday, March 22, 2004

It didn't. You can still use Access 2000, 2002, etc. without having to worry about MSDE at all.

Access has certainly become more integrated with SQL Server and MSDE, so that now using a SQL Server backend is (or at least seems!) just about as easy as using a Jet backend, and a lot of the stuff you can do in Enterprise Manager, you can also do from within Access.

But that doesn't mean you can't use Jet if you want to. Create a new MDB to use Jet or to use linked tables with whatever backend; create an ADP to use the SQL Server or MSDE integration.

(You can still access SQL Server/MSDE from an MDB using linked tables, but you won't get the benefit of the integrated graphical tools and stuff.)

Kyralessa
Monday, March 22, 2004

Ah, thank you. "[D]ependant" threw me a bit.

Andrew Burton
Monday, March 22, 2004

Sorry about the misinformation.

I believed somebody when they told me there was no choice.

I may have to deal with whatever rubbish they throw at me, but I really should stop believing what they tell me.

Ged Byrne
Monday, March 22, 2004

Hey, we all do that in one area or another; I'm just happy on the rare occasion when a question pops up here that I actually know something about.

Kyralessa
Monday, March 22, 2004