Question

I don’t have experience in using ms-access as client-server in window application. Let me get knowledge about some below –

1. In server, do I just place this access db in a share folder? And in client, just point to this path? Could i get a sample path syntax?
2. Four users will use this db. how should I do for concurrency? There will be insert, update and delete operation.

Thank you.

Answer 1

I’m concerned about the type of responses you’re getting here. You can’t reliably share any Access front end, whether it’s split or not. To your questions:

In server, do I just place this access
db in a share folder? And in client,
just point to this path? Could i get a
sample path syntax?

You first need to SPLIT your application into two files, one, the back end, with nothing but data tables, and the other with the front-end user interface objects (forms/reports/queries/etc.) and linked tables (instead of local tables). Only the back end file is placed on the server. Each individual user will get a copy of the front end.

The linked tables should be linked with UNC paths, i.e., \\Server\Databases\MyDataFile.mdb, instead of using mapped drives (which could be mapped differently on different workstations).

You might find a posting of mine about setting up a proper Access development environment useful. It also discusses deployment and splitting the app. For more information on that you might find Tony Toews set of articles on the subject helpful.

By the way, the split architecture has always been the only viable deployment approach for Access apps. I have always wondered why MS doesn’t do a better job in its documentations of explaining this.

Four users will use this db. how
should I do for concurrency? There
will be insert, update and delete
operation

Four users should be trivial, but it entirely depends on the nature of the kind of data you have and how the users are editing it. If a single record needs to be edited by multiple users, then you could easily have edit collisions. On the other hand, if users are usually inserting and editing their own records and not really overlapping with the other users, there should be little or no concurrency problems at all.

For some detailed consideration of record locking issues, see a post of mine from a long time ago that considers the subject of setting up an Access database for multi-user access.