Advice Requested -- Access Upgrade and Runtime

[CS]

I am currently running MS Office 2000 Pro Edition and am considering
upgrading for a number of reasons -- the foremost of which is:

I would like to distribute an Access DB that I have designed to several
members of a horse-enthusiast club that I belong to for their personal use
in keeping track of their animals, but most of these members do not have
Access installed on their PCs.

I was considering purchasing a copy of Office 2000 Developer's Edition
(found a copy for $249 -- folks who want the DB have said that they would
chip in to help me cover the cost) to take advantage of the runtime
possibilities in that package, but, I will admit, it's probably time for me
to upgrade Office anyway.

I have considered upgrading to Office 2003, XP, or 2007, but I'm not really
sure about what version -- or even what edition of which version -- to buy,
since naming conventions seemed to have changed -- is Developer's Edition
now the same as Visual Studio Tools? If there's a phone number I should
call to get presales info, I'm totally willing to do that, but I want some
experiential advice about what really is the best "bang for the buck".

Can anyone advise me on the best upgrade option to accomplish the following
goals:

1. To be able to distribute "runtime" versions of my DB to my friends/club
members who want to run this DB without having MS Access resident on their
machine
2. To have any runtime versions of the DB remain compatible with friends
who are still running on Windows 98 or ME (bless their hearts)
3. To keep any DBs that I generate through the upgraded software aligned
and working with current ASP support on my webhost

I am running XP sp2, but have Vista sitting patiently in its jewel case and
will install it as soon as I have the time to fiddle with it. I just want
to make an informed decision here about any upgrade for Office, and am
asking for advice about making an upgrade move that is not going to bite me
in the arse.

Thanks in advance for any help,
CS

 

[Tom Wickerath]

Hi CS,

You may have a good reason to consider upgrading to Access 2007. The reason
I say this is that this version is the first one that will include the
developer extensions as a free download. However, it is not yet currently
available:

Microsoft Access (Office) Developer Edition FAQ
http://www.granite.ab.ca/access/developereditionfaq.htm

Furthermore, you will likely want to wait until service pack 1 is released
before distributing any applications created with Access 2007. Also, your
second goal is not possible when using Access 2007:

2. To have any runtime versions of the DB remain compatible with friends
who are still running on Windows 98 or ME (bless their hearts)

In that case, Access 2002 is that latest and greatest that you can use:

List of system requirements for Microsoft Office 2003
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/822129/


Tom Wickerath
Microsoft Access MVP
https://mvp.support.microsoft.com/profile/Tom
http://www.access.qbuilt.com/html/expert_contributors.html
__________________________________________

 

[CS]

Thanks Tom -- That was exactly the kind of insight and information that I
was looking for!

CS