Backend without Access

[Tal]

Can I store and access the backend of an Access database on an NAS device,
which would therefore not be running Access and is actually just a glorified
external hard drive?

Thanks,
Tal

 

[golfinray]

Access Runtime allows users to use the Access backend without having full
Access on their computers.

 

[Tal]

Hi Milton,

Thanks for your response but that doesn't actually answer the question.
The issue is not on the end user computers, but rather where the back end is
stored, and whether the data itself can be stored on a machine not running
Access and in fact on a machine that is just an external hard drive.

Thanks,
Tal

 

[Marco Pagliero]

Yes, the frontend sees the backend(s) as a simple file, you don't need
Access to run on the device where the backend is stored.

Marco P

 

[golfinray]

Sorry, I misunderstood your question. I don't believe any code or references
associated with the tables would work without Access being loaded on the hard
drive. Other than that, yes.

 

[Jeff Boyce]

Tal

Over the years, I've often used Access back-ends located on servers that did
not have MS Access installed or running.

Regards

Jeff Boyce
Microsoft Access MVP

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Disclaimer: This author may have received products and services mentioned
in this post. Mention and/or description of a product or service herein
does not constitute endorsement thereof.

Any code or pseudocode included in this post is offered "as is", with no
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[John W. Vinson]

Sorry, I misunderstood your question. I don't believe any code or references
associated with the tables would work without Access being loaded on the hard
drive.

You're mistaken here, Golfinray; Access software is needed on the *user's*
computer, it is not needed on the network computer on which the backend
database is stored. That doesn't even need to be a Windows computer.

 

[Sylvain Lafontaine]

If your NAS device support the CIFS/SMB protocol for Microsoft Windows-based
clients, my belief would be that there shouldn't be any problem. Many
operating system other than Windows (workstation/server) support that and as
such, can be used to host and serve a MDB file to any Windows client;
including many Linux/UNIX distributions. The use of SAMBA is a common
solution for mixing together Linux and Windows iclients. Search Google with
SAMBA and/or OpenFiler.

However, I have no idea if your NAS device support the CIFS/SMB protocol or
if you can add it. Look at the documention for SMB or SMB/CIFS or CIFS/SMB
support but my expectation would be that this should be OK; even if you
didn't tell us any detail about your current configuration.

If this doesn't work with a server address (like "\\TheServer\Path... ), try
with a mapped drive (Z:\...).

--
Sylvain Lafontaine, ing.
MVP - Windows Live Platform
Blog/web site: http://coding-paparazzi.sylvainlafontaine.com
Independent consultant and remote programming for Access and SQL-Server
(French)

 

[Armen Stein]

Many
operating system other than Windows (workstation/server) support that and as
such, can be used to host and serve a MDB file to any Windows client;

It's been a few years, but one of the toughest corruption problems we
ever had was when our client's IT department put the Access back-end
on a Unix server without telling anyone. That version of Unix did
NOT have the required file locking capabilities, and repeatedly
corrupted the database beyond repair until we figured out the problem.

I would just host it on a Windows machine to be sure. If the external
storage unit acts like a regular drive to Windows, then it should work
fine, as other replies have stated.

Armen Stein
Microsoft Access MVP
www.JStreetTech.com