"John Baker" wrote
I've been doing custom development
with Access for many years now. How-
ever, I am now tasked with writing a
database-driven application that is to be
deployed commercially. It is a require-
ment that the user NOT be required to
have any specific software on their system
(like Access).
So I am seeking suggestions from other
Access users as to what development
tool they might use to develop an application
that would be perfect for Access were it
not for the need to be distributed to users
without it.
If I understand correctly what the requirements are, Access would be a good
tool for what you want to do.
With the Visual Studio Tools for Office 2003 System or the Office Developer
Edition for earlier versions, you can distribute your Access database
application with runtime support, so the user will not have to have Access.
(The runtime support _is_ Access and Jet with some functionality disabled,
but is installed automatically.) If you want to make your distribution
smoother, you may want to also obtain the Wise InstallMaster, InstallShield,
or other installer products, and scripts from SageKey. In all cases, it will
be rather large, so you will likely have to distribute on CD or your users
will have to have a very high-speed Internet connection.
MVP Tony Toews' site,
http://www.granite.ab.ca/accsmstr.htm has good
information on runtime support for various versions of Access.
I don't know of any development tool, as has already been mentioned, where
NO other software is required on the user's machine -- though there are a
number that will install the necessary extra software.
Larry Linson
Microsoft Access MVP