Wireless Network

[Guest]

Please can someone confirm or deny the rumour that Access does not work well
over a wireless network, because of dropped data.

 

[Albert D. Kallal]

Please can someone confirm or deny the rumour that Access does not work
well
over a wireless network, because of dropped data.

Most wireless networks are about 10 times slower then your typical office
lan. So, there is a performance hit.

And...yes...dropped connections can really damage a file.

If you use ms-access and the back end data is sql server..then that setup is
a lot more tolerant

 

[Tony Toews]

Please can someone confirm or deny the rumour that Access does not work well
over a wireless network, because of dropped data.

This is correct.

Tony
--
Tony Toews, Microsoft Access MVP
Please respond only in the newsgroups so that others can
read the entire thread of messages.
Microsoft Access Links, Hints, Tips & Accounting Systems at
http://www.granite.ab.ca/accsmstr.htm

 

[Tom Wickerath]

Hi Tony and Albert,

I've been pretty paranoid lately about the possibility of laptop user's at the company I work for
attempting to run an Access app. that uses a .mdb BE via a wireless network. Approximately a year
and a half ago, I asked a question at a meeting of the PNWADG (Pacific NW Access Developer's
Group), if there was a reliable method to detect the type of network connection. I mentioned my
concern about flakey network connections. Our meetings are sponsored in part by Microsoft, held
in their facilities in the Redmond, WA. campus, and often times include members of the Access
Development team in attendance. One of them, Tim Getsch, pondered my question at the time, but
did not offer a solution.

More recently (approx. 3 or 4 months ago) I asked the same question again. This time, Tim
indicated that he has no problem using a wireless connection at Microsoft to connect to Access
databases. Well, that's probably true, but Microsoft can also afford to have state-of-the-art
equipment, with plenty of stations spread throughout their campus. My question about how can we
detect the type of network connection remains unanswered to this day. I'd like to find a way,
perhaps with a timer event in a hidden form, to periodically verify that a hard-wired connection
was being used. If the user removes a laptop from a docked station, I'd like to be able to detect
that a wireless connection may have taken over, and immediately kick them out of the database.

So, my question to anyone who might be able to answer is do you know of any method to detect such
a connection using VBA code? We just recently received an announcement that a new building our
organization is moving to will be equipped with wireless connectivity. This doesn't give me a
"warm and fuzzy" feeling when it comes to the networked Access apps. SQL Server is really not an
option, since the apps. I develop at work are generally for a very small groups of people (5~15),
and the costs to our organization to have a SQL DBA assist are too much for the type of data that
is stored.

Tom
____________________________________

Please can someone confirm or deny the rumour that Access does not work well
over a wireless network, because of dropped data.

This is correct.

Tony
--
Tony Toews, Microsoft Access MVP
Please respond only in the newsgroups so that others can
read the entire thread of messages.
Microsoft Access Links, Hints, Tips & Accounting Systems at
http://www.granite.ab.ca/accsmstr.htm

 

[Tony Toews]

I've been pretty paranoid lately about the possibility of laptop user's at the company I work for
attempting to run an Access app. that uses a .mdb BE via a wireless network.
Agreed.

So, my question to anyone who might be able to answer is do you know of any method to detect such
a connection using VBA code?

I asked the VB MVPs and got the following suggestion.

=======================

Have you looked into the WMI:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/wmisdk/wmi/win32_classes.asp

Specifically the networking class:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/d...isdk/wmi/computer_system_hardware_classes.asp

Chris Hanscom - Microsoft MVP (VB)

=======================

When I did a bit of poking about I found AdapterType at
http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/wmisdk/wmi/win32_networkadapter.asp

Now I have no idea how you use WMI in a VBA app.

Tony
--
Tony Toews, Microsoft Access MVP
Please respond only in the newsgroups so that others can
read the entire thread of messages.
Microsoft Access Links, Hints, Tips & Accounting Systems at
http://www.granite.ab.ca/accsmstr.htm

 

[Tony Toews]

Have you looked into the WMI:

To add to this see the following URL for sample VB code on using WMI.

http://vbnet.mvps.org/index.html?code/wmi/wminetworkadapterconfig.htm

Tony
--
Tony Toews, Microsoft Access MVP
Please respond only in the newsgroups so that others can
read the entire thread of messages.
Microsoft Access Links, Hints, Tips & Accounting Systems at
http://www.granite.ab.ca/accsmstr.htm

 

[Tom Wickerath]

Thanks Tony.

I'll have a look.


Tom
______________________________

Have you looked into the WMI:

To add to this see the following URL for sample VB code on using WMI.

http://vbnet.mvps.org/index.html?code/wmi/wminetworkadapterconfig.htm

Tony
--
Tony Toews, Microsoft Access MVP
Please respond only in the newsgroups so that others can
read the entire thread of messages.
Microsoft Access Links, Hints, Tips & Accounting Systems at
http://www.granite.ab.ca/accsmstr.htm

 

[Tony Toews]

I'll have a look.

Please post back your findings on whether this works as I'd also be
interested.

Here's a posting by Randy Birch on this topic.

If you want to see the raw data that each item will return - some may
have info that other NICs don't - you can use this instead ..

Private Sub Command1_Click()

Dim objset As SWbemObjectSet
Dim obj As SWbemObject

Set objset =
GetObject("winmgmts:{impersonationLevel=impersonate}").InstancesOf("Win32_NetworkAdapterConfiguration")

For Each obj In objset
Debug.Print obj.GetObjectText_
Next

End Sub


You can then customize the call to return only the item you want, e.g.
if it was the NIC name, use:

Private Sub Command2_Click()

Dim objset As SWbemObjectSet
Dim obj As SWbemObject
Dim ssql As String

ssql = "select Description from Win32_NetworkAdapterConfiguration
where IPEnabled='TRUE'"

Set objset =
GetObject("winmgmts:{impersonationLevel=impersonate}").ExecQuery(ssql)

For Each obj In objset
Debug.Print obj.GetObjectText_
Next

End Sub

--


Randy

--
Tony Toews, Microsoft Access MVP
Please respond only in the newsgroups so that others can
read the entire thread of messages.
Microsoft Access Links, Hints, Tips & Accounting Systems at
http://www.granite.ab.ca/accsmstr.htm

 

[Tom Wickerath]

Hi Tony,

Will do, except that I am somewhat hampered in this effort because I currently do not have access
to wireless capability either at home or at work. Perhaps I'll look into purchasing a cheap
wireless network for home use, just so that I can more easily test any code. My home network is
the hard-wired version.

The current plan at my place of work is to make wireless capability available in a new building
that our organization is scheduled to move into sometime in the next 8-12 months. I fully expect
that schedule to slide, since moving the millions of dollars worth of analytical equipment in our
building will be a massive undertaking. It's a corporate lab with over 300 people and lots of
very sensitive analytical equipment.

Tom
___________________________________

I'll have a look.

Please post back your findings on whether this works as I'd also be
interested.

Here's a posting by Randy Birch on this topic.

If you want to see the raw data that each item will return - some may
have info that other NICs don't - you can use this instead ..

Private Sub Command1_Click()

Dim objset As SWbemObjectSet
Dim obj As SWbemObject

Set objset =
GetObject("winmgmts:{impersonationLevel=impersonate}").InstancesOf("Win32_NetworkAdapterConfigura
tion")

For Each obj In objset
Debug.Print obj.GetObjectText_
Next

End Sub


You can then customize the call to return only the item you want, e.g.
if it was the NIC name, use:

Private Sub Command2_Click()

Dim objset As SWbemObjectSet
Dim obj As SWbemObject
Dim ssql As String

ssql = "select Description from Win32_NetworkAdapterConfiguration
where IPEnabled='TRUE'"

Set objset =
GetObject("winmgmts:{impersonationLevel=impersonate}").ExecQuery(ssql)

For Each obj In objset
Debug.Print obj.GetObjectText_
Next

End Sub

--


Randy

--
Tony Toews, Microsoft Access MVP
Please respond only in the newsgroups so that others can
read the entire thread of messages.
Microsoft Access Links, Hints, Tips & Accounting Systems at
http://www.granite.ab.ca/accsmstr.htm