Aug 20

Deploying Microsoft Access Databases Linked to SQL Azure Databases

SQL Azure A few weeks ago, I discussed how Microsoft Access could link to databases hosted on SQL Azure. Here’s a new paper discussing How to Deploy Microsoft Access Databases Linked to a SQL Azure Database. Details on how this works and how to distribute your databases are covered. The people who receive your database don’t need a license of SQL Server but do need to have its ODBC driver installed on their machines.

Here’s the original blog on Microsoft Access and Cloud Computing with SQL Azure Databases.

Aug 19

Speed Up Microsoft Access and Visual SourceSafe Integration

Microsoft Visual SourceSafeMicrosoft AccessUsing Microsoft Visual SourceSafe (VSS) with Microsoft Access for system development is great for tracking old versions, maintaining a professional Access development platform, and multi-developer environments. Being able to quickly see old versions of individual objects, differences over time, and check-in and check-out objects to prevent multiple developers from changing the same object are all wonderful features. Visual Source Safe is part of MSDN. By installing the Office/Access developer extensions/edition or Visual Studio Tools for Office (VSTO), VSS gets added to your Access menus.

Unfortunately, as Access databases get more objects, VSS slows down and can sometimes take minutes to add a new object to the database. Waiting for VSS to prompt you for every new object not only wastes time (especially if you don't want to add a temporary object to VSS), it disrupts the rhythm of system development. Fortunately, there's an easy way to work around this. Read this paper Speed Up Microsoft Access and Visual SourceSafe Integration for details, including Access 2010.