Running Access on several computers

[Guest]

If I have a network of, say, five computers, all with Microsoft Access, can I
have an Access database on one computer, that is accessible from the other
four stations at the same time for entry and inquiry? In other words, can all
stations in a network open and run one Access database? I ask the "brain
trust" this question before I buy the product.

 

[Graham R Seach]

Donnie,

What you want to do, is exactly how it's supposed to be, but you first need
to separate the data from the user interface. We call that "splitting" the
database, and there's a wizard for just that.

From the Tools menu, select Database Utilities | Database Splitter.

Follow the prompts, and when it finishes, copy the back-end (the part with
all the tables in it) to the server. Then copy your front-end (the part with
all the forms in it) to each of the other computers.

That's it.

Regards,
Graham R Seach
Microsoft Access MVP
Sydney, Australia

Microsoft Access 2003 VBA Programmer's Reference
http://www.wiley.com/WileyCDA/WileyTitle/productCd-0764559036.html

 

[John Vinson]

If I have a network of, say, five computers, all with Microsoft Access, can I
have an Access database on one computer, that is accessible from the other
four stations at the same time for entry and inquiry? In other words, can all
stations in a network open and run one Access database? I ask the "brain
trust" this question before I buy the product.

Yes. This is perfectly routine and standard.

It's best to use the "Database Splitter Wizard"; this creates two
linked databases, a "backend" containing just the data tables, which
would be on a shared directory accessible to all users; and a
"frontend", containing the forms, reports, queries etc. which would
have links to the backend. A copy of the frontend would be put onto
each user's computer.

One of my clients has this architecture with one backend (well, two -
one for testing) and some 40 frontends installed and in use. A hundred
frontends is quite feasible with good design.

John W. Vinson[MVP]
Join the online Access Chats
Tuesday 11am EDT - Thursday 3:30pm EDT
http://community.compuserve.com/msdevapps

 

[Joseph Meehan]

If I have a network of, say, five computers, all with Microsoft Access,
can
I have an Access database on one computer, that is accessible from the
other
four stations at the same time for entry and inquiry? In other words, can
all stations in a network open and run one Access database? I ask the
"brain
trust" this question before I buy the product.

Just to make one thing clear. You can do this without splitting the
database, but you really should. Splitting the database will help you avoid
many problems.