Data Access Pages Use on the Internet

[Todd Pendleton]

I've studied the online documentation on this subject and am currently
attempting deployment of DAPs, but have run into "unreliability" difficulties.

MS should definitively clarify the following:
1. Are client machines connecting to DAPs over the internet
"Office-installation version-specific"? I.e., 2000 to 2000 only? . . . XP to
XP only? . . . 2003 to 2003 only? Or are they not version-to-version
specific? Does attempting interversion use result in random-like
unreliability, rather than absolute non-functionality? Our testing, so far,
seems to indicate something like this happening.

2. When opened in XP, will a DAP created in 2000 convert to the Office XP
standards for successful version-specific deployment, if deployment, as
mentioned above is version-specific?

3. Must the database server, when separate from the web server, also be
running IIS, like the web server?

Thanks,

 

[Todd Pendleton]

Further testing has shown the following to our original questions:
1. It still might be better in the long run to maintain version specificity,
but at least in our situation, we've been able to achieve success without
version specificity.
I.e., DAPs created in 2000 have been run successfully over the internet and
opened successfully on machines running either 2000 or XP. We have not
tested 2003.

In those cases where our Initial problem occurred, giving rise to this
question in the first place -- with the error message " . . . server not
configured . . . " -- the solution was to have the client machines add our
website URL to their Trusted Sites list in IE. This wasn't always necessary,
but again, where the problem arose, this was the fix. Curiously, the error
message did not appear to be related to security issues, though.

2. Yes, when a DAP from 2000 in opend for editing in XP, XP will make the
conversion. We have not tested post-conversion DAPs over the internet
running on 2000 client machines or XP client machines, yet.

3. Apparently, the database server does not need to be running IIS. Our
database and web server are on two separate machines. The first on Windows
2000, the second on Windows NT server, I believe, with SQL server 7.0.