cdthurman
asked on
Network Application
I have been looking for some time on a way to do this I have an application that will be running on a network with a centralized Access DB (this is done to alleviate the need for the user having to install anything specific for a database such as Oracle) the best way I can tell to accomplish this is when installing the application on the "Server" computer to share out a folder and on the "Client" computers to point to that shared folder and the DB. My question is, Is there a better way of getting data from an access database or is there another database application I can use that does not require the user doing anything. I need the application to be very easy to install and get started as my customers are not the most computer literate people.
Éric Moreau
You will need to install minimum requirements on each user's PC (VB Runtime, MDAC, 3rd party components, ...). Once MDAC is installed, you can connect to SQL Server without installing anything else on the PC.
ASKER
Right... But dont I need SQL Server on a server somewhere? I am talking about a completely mobile database that does not require a real server to run.
>>I am talking about a completely mobile database
I thought you wanted to connect to central database. SQL Server needs to be installed on a server but clients do not requires any installation except for MDAC.
I thought you wanted to connect to central database. SQL Server needs to be installed on a server but clients do not requires any installation except for MDAC.
Hi cdthurman,
The absolute simplest solution is to turn your application into a web application so your customers don't have to have anything except their web browser.
Cheers!
The absolute simplest solution is to turn your application into a web application so your customers don't have to have anything except their web browser.
Cheers!
You can use Access. The client's do, however, need all the minimum requirements to run the app as emoreau pointed out. Depending on how data intensive your application is, Access should be fine. If you are talking about lots of transactions per minute and millions of records, then you need to move to something like SQL Server. You can optionally just install the exe on the server in the same location as the database so your connection string will simply point to App.Path & "\mydb.mdb". The client's can then just have icons on their desktops pointing to the exe on the server. The only real problem with this is when you want to update the exe, no client can be running the program.
ASKER
I should clarify the system a bit. There will be multiple sites where the application will run on the network at each individual site.
The central database would be centralized to that location.
Some sites have 1 computer
others may have 4 or 5
Not anticipating more than 10 computers at a location, and no we are not talking about very many transaction per day.
The central database would be centralized to that location.
Some sites have 1 computer
others may have 4 or 5
Not anticipating more than 10 computers at a location, and no we are not talking about very many transaction per day.
ASKER CERTIFIED SOLUTION
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The path to the database should be stock in an external file (the most popular in VB6 is a .INI file) and create your connection string based on the content of that file.