Package and Deployment Wizard Question

[Thornmastr]

Good Afternoon,

I need to distribute an application which includes the run time files for
Access 2002. I do have the Office XP Developer CD’s. The application itself
is written in VB 6 with an Access back-end. I have created a number of
reports in Access and I am starting them from the Visual Basic Front End.
However, I have a number of users who do not have a copy of Access which
means they will obviously need the run time files.

From what I understand the way to get the runtime files is to use the
package and deployment wizard available as an Access add-in. OK. Great. And
where is that little sucker? I do have the Package and Deployment Wizard for
Visual Basic but that has no intent of taking an mdb or mde database as the
primary file. In fact, it refuses to work with anything but a VB project
file; so obviously I need the one from Access. Do I have to reload the
Access files from the Developer CD’s (Access install part) or from the
Office Developer’s CD; or, better yet; Is there somewhere on one of those
CD’s a folder having all the Access runtime files.

Any suggestions, hints, advice is more than welcome and much appreciated.

[Saga]

I am not sure about this, so I'll state it as a question:
Are you legally able to distribute the Access files?

In any case, I am not sure why you need for your users
to have Access. If I understood correctly, you have a VB6
app that uses an access mdb file. Is that correct? Is that the
extent that you are using Access?

When you build an app that uses the mdb file, the Package
and Deployment Wizard (setup wiz) will most likely detect
which support files you need and include them inthe setup
package.

The beauty (or ugliness) of using mdb file within VB is that
the target pcs where your solution is deployed do not need
to have Access installed.

In cases where you want your users to manipulate the db
outside of your app, then it is when they need Access (or
some other equivalent application). In this case, the only
solution is to install Access on each of the target PCs that
need it. I usually do not recommend modifying or manipulating
data outside of its front end, as it becomes too dangerous,
but if ya have to, ya have to.

Good luck.
Saga

<Th********@NOSPAM.earthlink.net> wrote in message
news:Ia******************@newsread1.news.pas.earth link.net...

Good Afternoon,

I need to distribute an application which includes the run time files
for
Access 2002. I do have the Office XP Developer CD's. The application
itself
is written in VB 6 with an Access back-end. I have created a number of
reports in Access and I am starting them from the Visual Basic Front
End.
However, I have a number of users who do not have a copy of Access
which
means they will obviously need the run time files.

From what I understand the way to get the runtime files is to use the
package and deployment wizard available as an Access add-in. OK.
Great. And
where is that little sucker? I do have the Package and Deployment
Wizard for
Visual Basic but that has no intent of taking an mdb or mde database
as the
primary file. In fact, it refuses to work with anything but a VB
project
file; so obviously I need the one from Access. Do I have to reload the
Access files from the Developer CD's (Access install part) or from the
Office Developer's CD; or, better yet; Is there somewhere on one of
those
CD's a folder having all the Access runtime files.

Any suggestions, hints, advice is more than welcome and much
appreciated.

[Jezebel]

If you've installed the Developer Files, the P&D wizard should show up on
the same menu as the compiler where you create the MDE file. Be aware, there
are two major issues --

1) It is one MONSTER installation - over 110 MB last time I tried it.

2) It wreaks havoc for users who DO have Access installed, particularly if
they have a different version.


<Th********@NOSPAM.earthlink.net> wrote in message
news:Ia******************@newsread1.news.pas.earth link.net...

Good Afternoon,

I need to distribute an application which includes the run time files for
Access 2002. I do have the Office XP Developer CD's. The application itself is written in VB 6 with an Access back-end. I have created a number of
reports in Access and I am starting them from the Visual Basic Front End.
However, I have a number of users who do not have a copy of Access which
means they will obviously need the run time files.

From what I understand the way to get the runtime files is to use the
package and deployment wizard available as an Access add-in. OK. Great. And where is that little sucker? I do have the Package and Deployment Wizard for Visual Basic but that has no intent of taking an mdb or mde database as the primary file. In fact, it refuses to work with anything but a VB project
file; so obviously I need the one from Access. Do I have to reload the
Access files from the Developer CD's (Access install part) or from the
Office Developer's CD; or, better yet; Is there somewhere on one of those
CD's a folder having all the Access runtime files.

Any suggestions, hints, advice is more than welcome and much appreciated.

[Jezebel]

"Saga" <an******@somewhere.com> wrote in message
news:uq*************@TK2MSFTNGP11.phx.gbl...

I am not sure about this, so I'll state it as a question:
Are you legally able to distribute the Access files?
If you have Office Developer, yes. It creates a compiled database
application (mde rather than mdb), so users can (in theory) run the Access
app without being able to use Access itself.

In any case, I am not sure why you need for your users
to have Access. If I understood correctly, you have a VB6
app that uses an access mdb file. Is that correct? Is that the
extent that you are using Access?
As the OP said, there are some Access reports fired from the VB app. Not a
method many people would recommend, but technically feasible.

[ThornMastr]

On 1-Nov-2004, "Jezebel" <dw*****@heaven.com.kr> wrote:

If you've installed the Developer Files, the P&D wizard should show up on
the same menu as the compiler where you create the MDE file. Be aware,
there
are two major issues --

1) It is one MONSTER installation - over 110 MB last time I tried it.

2) It wreaks havoc for users who DO have Access installed, particularly if
they have a different version.

Thank you both for your replies. Jezebel, you are correct. Once I built an
MDE file, the run time library made itself known to me but the points
raised, especially the second, stopped me cold. The client does have A2K
installed on his system. However, he owns a number of stores; some of which
will not have Access installed. I guess the next step is to find out if he
intends to install Access at the other stores, or does he want to deal with
the runtime files.

Again, thank you both for your assistance.

--
Robert Berman
Vulcan Software Services
Th********@NOSPAM.earthlink.net