Risks of using centralized MDE and split database

[Stephen J. Levine MD]

What are the risks of using a single mde for your
application, accessible by shortcuts and linked to the
database which resides in a separate .mdb file?

1. Does it affect pessimistic record locking?
2. If all of the temporary data unique to each session is
stored in visual basic variables and arrays created by
public and private dim statements, is there a risk of one
session affecting the temporary data of another?
3. Any other risks?

sjl

 

[Tony Toews]

What are the risks of using a single mde for your
application, accessible by shortcuts and linked to the
database which resides in a separate .mdb file?

1. Does it affect pessimistic record locking?

Not as far as i know.

2. If all of the temporary data unique to each session is
stored in visual basic variables and arrays created by
public and private dim statements, is there a risk of one
session affecting the temporary data of another?

This wouldn't be a problem as Access is running on each individuals
PC. However if you had temporary tables linked in then that would be
a problem.

3. Any other risks?

You run a greatly increased chance of corrupting the FE. Standard
blurb follows.

However you really want to put the FE on each machine or place in a
user specific directory on the server. This will help avoid some
weird error messages when users are changing the same forms record
source, filters and such as well as corruptions.

I specifically created the Auto FE Updater utility so that I could
make changes to the FE MDE as often as I wanted and be quite confident
that the next time someone went to run the app that it would pull in
the latest version. For more info on the errors or the Auto FE
Updater utility see the free Auto FE Updater utility at
http://www.granite.ab.ca/access/autofe.htm at my website to keep the
FE on each PC up to date.

In a Terminal Server or Citrix environment the Auto FE Updater now
supports creating a directory named after the user on a server. Given
a choice put the FE on the Citrix server to reduce network traffic and
to avoid having to load objects over the network which can be somewhat
sluggish.

Tony
--
Tony Toews, Microsoft Access MVP
Please respond only in the newsgroups so that others can
read the entire thread of messages.
Microsoft Access Links, Hints, Tips & Accounting Systems at
http://www.granite.ab.ca/accsmstr.htm

 

[Stephen J. Levine, MD]

Do you or anyone else know of any official recommendations or references that state that the preferred way to run the mde fe is to provide each user with his own copy?

With your permission, I would like to include this post in documentation supporting an eventual decision to change the way the fe is handled so that each user is given a copy of the fe to work with.

Is there any downside to just copying the fe to the windows/temp directory and using it there for the session?

sjl

 

[Stephen J. Levine, MD]

Tony

With your permission, I would like to include this post and a copy of your web page as documentation supporting an eventual decision to change the way the fe is handled so that each user is given a copy of the fe to work with.

Do you or anyone else know of any other official recommendations or references that state that the preferred way to run the mde fe is to provide each user with his own copy? I would like to have these in my documentation to support the move to giving users their own copies.

Is there any downside to just copying the fe to the windows/temp directory and using it there just for the session? I would like the user to use a fresh copy each time they log in.

sjl

sjl

 

[Douglas J. Steele]

http://support.microsoft.com/?id=304932 talks about splitting, but it falls
short of coming out and saying it's the best approach.

I haven't checked in the Help file for other versions, but under "splitting
databases" in the Access 97 help file, they say:

"Share only the tables in the database

"You can put only the tables on a network server, and keep other database
objects on users' computers. In this case, the database's performance is
faster because only data is sent across the network. Also, users can
customize their forms, reports, and other objects for their individual needs
and preferences without affecting other users.

"You can separate the tables from the other database objects by using the
Database Splitter Wizard."

--
Doug Steele, Microsoft Access MVP

(No private e-mails, please)

Do you or anyone else know of any official recommendations or references

that state that the preferred way to run the mde fe is to provide each user
with his own copy?

With your permission, I would like to include this post in documentation

supporting an eventual decision to change the way the fe is handled so that
each user is given a copy of the fe to work with.

Is there any downside to just copying the fe to the windows/temp directory

and using it there for the session?

 

[Tony Toews]

With your permission, I would like to include this post and a copy of your web page as documentation supporting an eventual decision to change the way the fe is handled so that each user is given a copy of the fe to work with.

No problem.

Do you or anyone else know of any other official recommendations or references that state that the preferred way to run the mde fe is to provide each user with his own copy? I would like to have these in my documentation to support the move to giving users their own copies.

We discussed this a while back but I don't know if anything came out
of it.

Is there any downside to just copying the fe to the windows/temp directory and using it there just for the session? I would like the user to use a fresh copy each time they log in.

Nothing except for the increased network traffic of copying it each
time. My clients MDE is about 20 Mb so that takes a while.

Tony
--
Tony Toews, Microsoft Access MVP
Please respond only in the newsgroups so that others can
read the entire thread of messages.
Microsoft Access Links, Hints, Tips & Accounting Systems at
http://www.granite.ab.ca/accsmstr.htm

 

[Tony Toews]

Do you or anyone else know of any other official recommendations or references that state that the preferred way to run the mde fe is to provide each user with his own copy? I would like to have these in my documentation to support the move to giving users their own copies.

Thanks to a fellow MVP for pointing out the following link:
Best Practices When Using Microsoft Office Access 2003 in a Multi-user
Environment
http://www.msdn.microsoft.com/offic.../en-us/odc_ac2003_ta/html/odc_acmultibest.asp

It only has several sentences on this particular topic but there's
something there.

Tony
--
Tony Toews, Microsoft Access MVP
Please respond only in the newsgroups so that others can
read the entire thread of messages.
Microsoft Access Links, Hints, Tips & Accounting Systems at
http://www.granite.ab.ca/accsmstr.htm