Benefits of Access 2000 over 97 3

[lachie]

Hi,

My company has a whole load of users running our application using access 97 databases. (The data is linked into a code database which comes in a 2K flavour as well).

Recently we have been running into corruptions in the databases on an increasing rate.

I was wondering if anybody knew of any benefits of going to Access 2000 as a data store over 97. I'm trying to gauge the benefits as it will require a substantial rewrite to bring our code into using ADO..

Thanks,

lachlan

 

[Ed2020]

Lachlan,

You wouldn't need to rewrite all your code. Access 2000 and XP use DAO as well - you simply need to set a reference to the DAO3.6 library and set it as a higher priority than ADO.

Personally I'd go for Access XP rather than 2000 - more stable.

Ed Metcalfe.

 

[Guest_imported]

i have not managed to create updateable DAP pages in access 2000, exporting updateable ASP pages from access 97 was sooo easy.

not played around on access xp yet, what's the story on exporting DAP/ASP?

 

[Ed2020]

Not something I've ever had cause to do in XP, but I've never had any problems creating DAPs in 2000.......

Ed.

 

[Harpz]

Lachlan,

In answer to your question, 2000 can handle a hell of a lot more data than '97. So as far as a data store goes and performance, its alot better(but not the best) !

Harpz

 

[Ed2020]

Harpz,

So what's the best?

Ed.

 

[Harpz]

Ed,

This will probaly start off a new thread but 'SQL Server' and so is 'Oracle 8i' is pretty good at that sort of thing !

Harpz

 

[Ed2020]

Harpz,

It's horses for courses. I wouldn't necessarily say SQL Server or Oracle were better than Access. Depends what you want to do........ MS Access is better as a RAD tool.

Ed.

 

[Ed2020]

Personally I think Lotus Approach is the best of all. Hahahaha!!!

 

[Harpz]

Ed,

I agree that Access is a much better RAD tool then Oracle or SQL Server. But as a data store, they both beat Access hands down when considering performance and data magnitude capabilities.

Harpz

 

[Harpz]

Ed,

I agree that Access is a much better RAD tool than Oracle or SQL Server. But as a data store, they both beat Access hands down when considering performance and data magnitude capabilities.

Harpz

 

[Ed2020]

Fair point.

Ed.

 

[hsitz]

SQL Server isn't something you can program an application with by itself. You have to have a front end that access the data. And that's another area where Access 2000 has an advantage over Access 97. Access 2000 has the new "Access Project" file type(stored in an .adp file) that provides really nice integration with SQL Server. If you're making more industrial strength apps, Access 2000 is almost certainly going to be the fastest RAD environment for a SQL Server backend. -- Herb

 

[Ed2020]

Herb,

I agree, but if you are purely using MS Access as a front end VB development environment you might as well go with VB6. Same language, less bloat.

Also means users won't each need an MS Access license.....

Ed Metcalfe.

 

[Harpz]

Herb,

I agree that Access 2000 is far more superior than '97, but when we are talking about industrial strength application's, VB is far more superior than Access !

Harpz

 

[scking]

It's amazing how normally docile people can disagree so easily about this issue with no criteria for evaluation. Remember, the question "So what's best" is best answered by "Depends on what you want to use it for and your criteria."

Steve King Growth follows a healthy professional curiosity

 

[lachie]

Thanks for your advice,

I've currently developed our application to use SQL Server as an optional back end data store. (Using the cludge of linking tables in access 97).

What I'm considering doing is moving the whole application to 2000 AND rewriting it to use ADO (to get the full benefit out of using SQL Server - row level locking etc..).

You've all mentioned that Access 2K is better, does anybody have any references to back this up, or is this an intuitive feeling? I've tried searching the web, this group, the FAQs and have come up fairly blank.

 

[hsitz]

lachie - Can't tell whether you missed the "Access Data Projects" I mentioned a couple messages ago, or not. This is an entirely new setup in Access 2000 that makes Access into provides a pretty seamless front end to a SQL Server database using ADO throughout. You can use the Access 2000 upsizing wizard to do as much of the conversion of existing queries and record sources as possible, and forms will all use ADO rather than the DAO that is standard form recordset in .mdb files.

As others have said, using Access rather than VB6 for SQL Server backend applications does result in a larger footprint. And it may be that even just using it as a front end isn't as "industrial strength" as VB6 (I really don't know, but in any case the main stability/performance problems with Access are with Jet rather than the front end part of things). What I do think is that you can't beat the speed of development. And there are some goodies in Jet that you can always resort to in some areas where SQL Server is lacking (e.g., crosstab queries). -- Herb

 

[HeyDudes]

i suggest you buy a good book on access 2000 and look for the little icons that usually says "NEW IN 2000", there are LOADS of em. Especially for the fact that you might end up having to explain to some Manager / Director, why you are spending money on software, AGAIN...