Can I run a web-based program without web server

[joyo2003us]

Hi,

This question has been confused me for a while. Can I run a web-based
program without webserver? I've developed several Access applications.
Usually, I put the mdb file on our shared drive and let everyone
access it. Now I would like to use web browser as frontend interface.
The users are through the web browser to save and query the data in
database, but I have a problem. I can not have a web server. I've read
a couple of articles. I understand I have to have a web server, such as
IIS or Apache if I want to run a web-based database. The reason which I
can not have a web server is not related to technical, it is political.


My question is,

If I put my backend (Database file) on shared drive. Can everyone use
the web browser to save and retrieve the data from backend without a
web server running. If so, could you give me a detailed explaination on
this. I am also seeking some other ways, such as using PHP or JSP to
make it work.

Thank you very much.

joyo

 

[Sylvain Lafontaine]

Under some circumstances, it is possible to have some sort "web-based"
program without a web server; however, it's not the easy path (in fact, even
having a web server is not always the easy path).

For example, Data Access Pages can be HTML (or HTA) pages and as such, can
be opened directly from a shared drive into a web browser and manipulates an
Access database backend over the LAN (but not over the WAN). However,
creating and using DAPs will not be an easy task if your needs are less than
simple. There is a newsgroup about DAP:
microsoft.public.access.dataaccess.pages.

(HTA pages are like HTML pages but the suffixe renamed from HTM to HTA.
This will have the effect of reducing the security features applied by IE to
the page. Can be usefull for some kind of javascript running on the client
side.)

There are other possibilities, like running a small program to will act like
a web server but I don't know if they will break your *political*
restrictions. For an exemple of such a program, take a look at Cassini for
ASP.NET on http://www.asp.net/Default.aspx?tabindex=6&tabid=41 . Other
things like PHP or JSP will also require the need of a web server.

Maybe the best solution for you would be to take a look at the .NET
Framework and develop an EXE program to manipulate your data.