I do touch on the mde issue in the following article about splitting your
database here:
http://www.members.shaw.ca/AlbertKallal/Articles/split/index.htm
The use of an mde on your computer does not change your requirements for
having MS access installed, but it does help in terms of making your
application to run faster, load faster, and also makes it more stable in a
production environment.
Of course the other added advantage is that your end users will not be able
to modify your code, your forums, or things like reports.
Also if you look at one of the most common questions in this newsgroup
regarding create a mde database, the first question people ask is they say
they're trying to create this database, but access will not allow them.
Virtually 99% of the time, the answer that fixes their problem is that if
they go debug compile, they have a errors in their code.
What this means is that they been running their application with bugs and
errors in their code, and the ONLY find this out when they attempt to create
the mde. So it's always a really good last step as a checklist to simply
compile your code before deployment to your users, and a mde forces you to
do this.
It is pretty much a foregone conclusion that if you're going to use a mde,
then you are likely must split your database else you're not really going to
have a way to update and continue to modify your application part.