"Anns via AccessMonster.com" <u22580@uwewrote in message
news:6447c2fa2eba8@uwe...
Larry,
You have been a wonderful help to me in some of my silly questions, can
you
briefing give some advice on the questions below?
I've done a good deal of work with Access clients to server databases, but
none of them began as an Access/Jet database that was later upsized. The
server tables and relationships were created using data modeling software,
and the Access client linked those tables via ODBC drivers. Linking is
easy -- same mechanism used to link tables in a separate MDB (File | Get
External Data, then follow the prompts)... we used Data Source Name (DSN)
but Googling in the archives of this newsgroup should turn up information on
"DSN-less connection." I hasten to point out that the Database
Administrator (DBA) did the data modeling and table generation and installed
the third-party ODBC drivers -- I did not do that part of the projects.
In recent versions, if I understand correctly, the Upsizing Wizard generates
SQL Server tables and an Access ADP. The relatively little work that I have
done with ADPs left me unconvinced of their superiority, and, apparently,
the Access development team came to the same conclusion because the
"knowledgeable insiders" now recommend the old, tried-and-true Access MDB
<-ODBC <-Server DB approach.
So, I am sad to say that I can't help with specifics of upsizing using the
wizards. To the best of my knowledge, the Wizard will handle both the
tables and the client application to give you "something that works" but may
not "work well."
If I were faced with "upsizing" an Access / Jet application, I suspect I
would use the Wizard to create the SQL Server tables and relationships, and
then would manually link those tables, use append Queries to populate them
from the Jet data, and then make the necessary changes to the Access client.
Unless I felt a truly _compelling_ need to put the application on the
Internet or an intranet (e.g., with remote users who only had browsers, not
Access, nor even the Access runtime), not just on a LAN/WAN combination, I
would not devote the time and effort to recreate the application in the .NET
environment. For client-server applications, there will be little
advantage, or none, and it will certainly complicate maintenance of the
application.
Larry Linson
Microsoft Access MVP
