Developing Desktop App in Access 2010 or 2013
I am a long time Access developer. I started in Access 2 and have most recently been developing in Access 2003. I know there have been several new versions since 2003 but have not had any need to upgrade.
Some background on the apps.
These are desktop apps written for clients to distribute throughout their office with the data resident on the office server. The MDB's have been split so only the DATA MDB resides on the server. The Proc MDB (Forms, Queries, Reports, Macros, Modules) is resident on each machine locally. They do not need to run on the web, in a cloud or on a portable device.
The apps we have developed in 2003 have been proven to run on newer versions of Access up thru 2010 (32 bit only). With some modification to remove functionality that is not supported in newer version these apps also run successfully on all versions of Win 7 and even Win 8.
My clients have started to question the use of Access 2003 and expressed concerns that MS is dropping/has dropped support. I would like to go to a more current version of Access but don't want to lose my 'framework' for project development. I have many routines and fucntionlity techniques that I move from app to app.
I would want to preserve all of my code for standard subroutines and functions used in all of the applications.
I have read thru the 'What's new in Access 20xx' articles and come to the conclusion that up thru Access 2010 most of what I have developed will be useable and that the development environment (Forms, Queries, Reports, macros, modules, VBA code) is the same.
It seems as though 2013 is a departure from the standard and more geared to Web and Cloud based applications. That is fine and a good step by MS but I don't want to go to a MS Access version that would make all of my developement obsolete. As mentioend above I have many modules and lots of code that had been battle tested. I do not want to have to re-invent and retest this. It seems as though in 2013 the concept of forms has been changed and VBA code is no longer supported.
Based on what I have read Access 2010 seems to be as far as I want ot upgrade at this point. I am looking for insight from EE developers that have made a similar transition and what they have uncovered in doing so. I realize that reading the MS blurbs about the features and 'wonderfullness' of the new versions doesn't give a complete picture of the problems that will be encoutered by developers moving from version to version with hopes of retaining their framework.
An input from develpers that have made the transitions is welcome and encouraged. What kind of problems were encoutered moving up thru the Access version. I can read the documented features/functionality that were eliminated but what did you encounter in the way of undocumented problems and gotchas?
Thank you in advance for your input and sharing of experiences.
I realize there is no right answer to this question so I will award points based on applicable responses.
Some background on the apps.
These are desktop apps written for clients to distribute throughout their office with the data resident on the office server. The MDB's have been split so only the DATA MDB resides on the server. The Proc MDB (Forms, Queries, Reports, Macros, Modules) is resident on each machine locally. They do not need to run on the web, in a cloud or on a portable device.
The apps we have developed in 2003 have been proven to run on newer versions of Access up thru 2010 (32 bit only). With some modification to remove functionality that is not supported in newer version these apps also run successfully on all versions of Win 7 and even Win 8.
My clients have started to question the use of Access 2003 and expressed concerns that MS is dropping/has dropped support. I would like to go to a more current version of Access but don't want to lose my 'framework' for project development. I have many routines and fucntionlity techniques that I move from app to app.
I would want to preserve all of my code for standard subroutines and functions used in all of the applications.
I have read thru the 'What's new in Access 20xx' articles and come to the conclusion that up thru Access 2010 most of what I have developed will be useable and that the development environment (Forms, Queries, Reports, macros, modules, VBA code) is the same.
It seems as though 2013 is a departure from the standard and more geared to Web and Cloud based applications. That is fine and a good step by MS but I don't want to go to a MS Access version that would make all of my developement obsolete. As mentioend above I have many modules and lots of code that had been battle tested. I do not want to have to re-invent and retest this. It seems as though in 2013 the concept of forms has been changed and VBA code is no longer supported.
Based on what I have read Access 2010 seems to be as far as I want ot upgrade at this point. I am looking for insight from EE developers that have made a similar transition and what they have uncovered in doing so. I realize that reading the MS blurbs about the features and 'wonderfullness' of the new versions doesn't give a complete picture of the problems that will be encoutered by developers moving from version to version with hopes of retaining their framework.
An input from develpers that have made the transitions is welcome and encouraged. What kind of problems were encoutered moving up thru the Access version. I can read the documented features/functionality that were eliminated but what did you encounter in the way of undocumented problems and gotchas?
Thank you in advance for your input and sharing of experiences.
I realize there is no right answer to this question so I will award points based on applicable responses.
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Luke Chung
Access 2013 doesn't support graphs, pivot tables and charts, and ADPs, so if you have any apps that have that, stick with 2010.
ASKER
Thanks, this is exactly the kind of feedback and direction I was hoping for. For right now I'm going to upgrade to 2010.