Access XP vs Access 2003

[Joe Williams]

We are running Access XP in our environment and we have the licences for
Access 2003. Can anyone give me the benefits/pitfalls of upgrading to Access
2003? We have one main application that everyone in the company uses that
has many obdc links and forms, etc.

My main concern is upgrading to 2003 and finding out something is not
working properly. What has been everyone's experience? Also, is there
anything to worry about with 2003 as far as working with older versions of
access databases? For isntance, I do a lot of work on 2000 and 2002
databases and want to make sure there is nothing really glaring in 2003 that
would hinder that.

Thanks all

- joe

 

[Allen Browne]

The biggest pitfall is the macro security nonsense in A2003.

Unless your corporate admins are willing to let you set macro security to No
or purchase a digital certificate, you will have to train your users to
handle the warning dialog that comes up every time you open your A2003
database. It tells the user not to open the file if it contains any code,
macros, or update queries, as it is too dangerous.

Once they choose the non-default answer and tell it to open the file anyway,
they are presented with a bigger dialog with lots of text and a scrollbar in
the middle explaining that it really is too dangerous as JET is not running
in Sandbox mode. They have to answer Yes or No, and the question itself is
buried in the middle of the text, so once they find the question, they must
bravely decide to ignore the advice and again choose the non-default answer.

Having dismised this dialog, they then get a *third* dialog warning them not
to open the file!!! And this is not just the first time, but *every* time
they try to open any of your databases. If Microsoft were trying to kill off
Access, they could barely have come up with a better concept.

Provided your network admins will set Tools | Macro | Security to low, you
can avoid the nonsense. The result is actually the same as you using A2002
anyway.

Those who have purchased the digital certificate say that it still gives
messages whenever you open it anyway, so setting low security is really the
only solution to using A2003.

Once you finally get it, A2003 is a more stable product. But if any users
ever give a wrong answer and disable Sandbox, they may break some of the
functionality in your app.

 

[Fred Boer]

Wow, Allen, that sounds hideous! Glad I'm working with Access 2002! Does
this "macro security nonsense" affect the 2003 Developer's Edition, too? If
you make a runtime application is it laden with this "functionality"?

.... or whatever the Developer's Edition is called.. (too lazy to go look it
up)

Fred Boer

 

[Albert D. Kallal]

Wow, Allen, that sounds hideous! Glad I'm working with Access 2002! Does
this "macro security nonsense" affect the 2003 Developer's Edition, too?
If
you make a runtime application is it laden with this "functionality"?

... or whatever the Developer's Edition is called.. (too lazy to go look
it
up)

Fred Boer

I just add to the installer to turn the macro security to low, and set the
JET sandbox to "sandbox" mode for everything else but ms-access.

With both of the above settings...I never see any nag messages.....either
with the runtime, or the full version.

And, in fact, even if you don't install JET SP8...you don't get any nag
messages at all with the above settings....