Couple of questions about the MSAccess environment

Hi there,

Have a couple of questions about applications developed using
MSAccess.

1. Is there a way to run and use you application OUTSIDE of the
MSAccess main window? In other words, can you use the application and
make it look like it has nothing to do with Access? If so, how?

2. If the answer to (1) is yes, when deploying you application to
customers, do they required access to run the application or can they
get away with simply a run-time version of access??

Thanks
Mike

Re: Couple of questions about the MSAccess environment

mike.arsenault@ivara.com wrote:

> Hi there,
>
> Have a couple of questions about applications developed using
> MSAccess.
>
> 1. Is there a way to run and use you application OUTSIDE of the
> MSAccess main window? In other words, can you use the application and
> make it look like it has nothing to do with Access? If so, how?
>
Doubtful.

> 2. If the answer to (1) is yes, when deploying you application to
> customers, do they required access to run the application or can they
> get away with simply a run-time version of access??
>

If you have a version prior to 2007 you will need to get a developer's
kit to provide a runtime version of Access to your users. If you have
A2007, you can get the runtime at Microsofts Office download area.

> Thanks
> Mike

Re: Couple of questions about the MSAccess environment

On Nov 30, 9:21 am, "mike.arsena...@ivara.com"
wrote:
> Hi there,
>
> Have a couple of questions about applications developed using
> MSAccess.
>
> 1. Is there a way to run and use you application OUTSIDE of the
> MSAccess main window? In other words, can you use the application and
> make it look like it has nothing to do with Access? If so, how?

Not really. You can use Win32 API calls from VBA which will let you
do stuff with window handles directly, however you might as well just
write in VB if you want that much trouble, and it gets messy.

HOWEVER, with the developers version, I have Office 2000 Developers
version, you can set options that pretty much make it impossible to
know it is Access, except from a trained eye. The average user will
not know. It has been years since I wrote a full-size application
using nothing but Access, but the one I have, I just ran it right now
and I can tell you the following:

1. It has a custom splash screen that comes up at loading, not the MS
Access one.

2. It has the application's name in the window title, not MS Access.
Also has the apps icon.

3. It has the application's name on the prompts.

4. It has its own custom toolbars, not the MS Access one.

O-ya, and I lied, I wrote 2 apps... and one of them also doesn't show
the MS Access main window at all. So that is basicly what you want,
it just shows a pop-up form in the middle of my screen, with no "main
window". However, I do recall that this one got messy, and this one
is actually only for in-house use, I wouldn't try to do these tricks
on a commercial/public version.

I can't just give you my code because the company owns it, but let me
know if you have any specific questions and I can try to remember how
I did each of the above. The first 4 are all "supported" and
documented, so those should be safe no matter what.

Also, you can build an MDE file instead of MDB, so people can't see
your code or edit it. I even renamed the MDE file to something else.
Then I made a BAT file that runs the run-time version of access and
opens my renamed MDE file. I put a shortcut to the BAT file on the
users' desktop, and set the icon to my program's icon. So basicly it
looks and runs like any other program, but uses the Access run-time.
Most users don't ever look at the BAT file, so they don't see the
msaccess.exe reference.

Of course the install for the run-time says Access all over it, so you
can't fully hide "Access". Plus, users that know can hold down the
SHIFT key while my app loads, which bypasses all of the startup stuff
and they see the normal Access GUI (but the run-time version doesn't
have hardly any options).

If you do use one of the tricks to hide the Access GUI, keep in mind
that you lose some stuff. For example, I hide the default toolbar and
menu, which means I lose everything on there, like Find, Cut/Copy/
Paste, etc. The options still work, but I have to make my own buttons/
menus etc. For the one app where I actually used the Win32 API to
hide the main apps window, using the window handle directly, I lost
the context menus. So when you right-click in any control, no menu,
so no "Filter by selection", etc. At some point you lose so many of
the nice Access features that you might as well use Visual Basic, with
the "Database" or "Data Aware" controls it isn't too much more work
than using Access Forms, at least if you aren't getting all of the
nice features Access gives you for "free" anyway. Some people might
recommend a combination of VB and Access for your front-end/GUI, VB
front-end gets installed on all PCs, and Access part only on the one
"admin user" PC.

> 2. If the answer to (1) is yes, when deploying you application to
> customers, do they required access to run the application or can they
> get away with simply a run-time version of access??
>

What Salad said.