MSDE 1.0 licensing confusion

[Ddeckard]

Hi all. I'm working on my first database project. I could use someone's knowledge and help on the specifics of using MSDE 1.0 legally. I've been reading up on this subject extensively, and I still can't figure out a clear answer.

I volunteer at a hospital and am writing a patient/physical therapist appointment scheduling program for a department. The department doesn't want to spend anything in terms of licensing for this project. I'm thinking of using Access 2000 and MSDE 1.0 as a solution since "Office 2000 Professional/Standard Edition" installations are already available on a few machines in the department and I don't want to get stuck with an older technology like Jet and/or DAO (want this program to be scalable in case SQL Server is an option in the future). Estimated number of concurrent users is between 2 and 4 people.

Is it legal for me to write an Access 2000/VBA front end, have it used by users with Access 2000 on their machines, and have MSDE 1.0 as the database server on a single machine without paying for any further licenses and fees? Or am I stuck using Jet if I want a free solution? What other restrictions/rules are there, ie. is there a limit on the number of users, does Access 2000 need to be installed on the machine with MSDE 1.0 as well, can the same scenario be done with MSDE 2000 instead of MSDE 1.0, etc.?

I read that "Office 2000 Developer Edition" (which is not available to me) is needed in order to redistribute MSDE 1.0. I don't know if what I'm proposing qualifies as redistributing (nor do I have a good definition of this term). I also read that MSDE 1.0 can be used by any owner of an Office 2000 license that includes it. The information I've read on various websites about the licensing is sometimes contradictory, and I don't understand the wording on Microsoft's site.

Somebody, please give me the benefit of your knowledge.

- Sinh

 

[ArkM]

See

http://www.microsoft.com/sql/msde/howtobuy/msdeuse.asp

It seems answer is yes, you may use MSDE but after registering or if you have Office Dev Ed, VS etc developer products. Better read MS about this matter.

But you 100% can't distribute MS Office front-end clients without Office licenses (or Office Dev Ed license).

 

[Craig0201]

I volunteer at a hospital and am writing a patient/physical therapist appointment scheduling program for a department."

Not advice on licensing but on the project.

I would be very careful in arranging your liability with a medical project. If your software has an error which causes a patient's care to suffer, you could be in a deep hole.

This isn't to put you off from doing something very worthwhile but cover yourself.

Craig

 

[MDXer]

Along with what Craig said, if you live in the US you need to read up and make sure your application does or doesn't fall under Hippa regulations and if it does your application and especially DB are HIPPA compliant. After working 1 HIPPA compliant project I can say they are huge pain.

"Shoot Me! Shoot Me NOW!!!"
- Daffy Duck

 

[mrdenny]

I'm not sure of the licensing of MSDE 1. I would recommend that you use MSDE 2 instead how ever. MSDE 2 is based on SQL 2000, while MSDE 1 is based on SQL 7.

The licensing for MSDE 2 is fairly basic. Download it, use it, it's free. You can freely distribute it with your app.

I believe that the licensing for MSDE 1 is basically the same, but I'm not positive.

There are some limits to MSDE that you should be aware of (if you arn't already).

Databases can not grow beyond 2 Gig in size.
You can only have 5 user transactions running at a time.
There are some restrictions to replication (which you probally won't be using based on your project example).

If you can work with these limitations then stick with MSDE, if not you will need to move up to full blown SQL Server.

Denny

--Anything is possible. All it takes is a little research. (Me)

 

[wgcs]

To clarify a little on what is often confusing:
You can only have 5 user transactions running at a time.

This doesn't mean that you can have only 5 users at a time. Most of the time a user is in your application, they should be looking at data. Occasionally, they will search for a new record, or change a record, or add a record (which should happen almost instantaneously). When one client starts such an operation, up to 4 more clients can start such an operation too, but after that, MSDE won't service any more operations (I think they get queued until the earlier ones complete... I'm pretty sure they don't get refused)

So, MSDE can easily handle dozens of clients, provided the clients aren't automated processes updating the DB continuously for hours on end.

- Bill

Get the best answers to your questions -- See FAQ481-4875.

 

[Terpsfan]

You will want to get MSDE 2000 because it offers a lot of advantages over 1.0. Here are some of the advantages:

- Allows free distribution. Before I think you had to have a valid Microsoft product.

- The workload administrator has been bumped up to 8 concurrent query batches. Previously it was 5. It basically means that if 8 query batches (such as updating a table) run at exactly the same time, the performance starts to degrade. If you manage your connections well with either .NET data sets or ADO disconnected recordsets, there is no reason you couldn't have 50 users depending on how much you update.

- Support for cascade update and deletes. This is a very overlooked but important enhancement. With previous versions of SQL Server and MSDE, triggers and stored procedures had to be written to cascade to child tables.

- Better security. The latest download of MSDE 2000 has all of the patches and fixes for the SQL Slammer and other vulnerabilities. Also it requires a strong password for the SA account.

- There are GUI tools available for administering security for your MSDE server, akin to the Enterprise Manager in SQL Server.

I've probably just skimmed the surface.

MSDE HOME

http://www.microsoft.com/sql/msde/default.asp

 

[chrissie1]

I would like to contradict the people that suggest msde 2000. for msde 2000 you would best have access 2002 because their are still some bugs in access 2000 if you try to use it with msde 2000 wich ships with office xp and above, believe me i worked a couple of years with both and had to swith. But i would recommend you would use access projects (adp files) instead of the normal mdb files. the only problem you will have is that there isnt a lot of documentation about it. but the people in the access adp forum will be glad to be of assistance!

Christiaan Baes
Belgium

What a wonderfull world - Louis armstrong

 

[RiverGuy]

I'm interested to know if anyone has used SQL Express, which is the successor to MSDE, and based on SQL Server 2005. The beta can be downloaded for free. I was going to wait until its GUI tool comes out. Yes, it will have a free GUI tool to download--unlike MSDE.

 

[DeanConsulting]

Yes, I have used SQL Express and it is quite nice. My, two cents worth, Microsoft really outdid itself on this application.


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