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Editorial Team
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Asked: 2026-05-20T01:35:59+00:00

Please don’t laugh, but I’m maintaining an Access database with an external customer table

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Please don’t laugh, but I’m maintaining an Access database with an external customer table for linking the local tables. I’d like to rebuild this in ASP.NET with a MySQL or SQL Server backend. I will still need to reference the external table for queries, but I’ve never set this up.

Is one engine better than the other for external connections? Are there any other considerations, such as security (how are the external credentials stored in each)?

Thanks for your time,

Tom

Edit: Sorry, I didn’t specify. The primary database I’m linking to is an external SQL Server database, but it’s on an enterprise system. The database I maintain is for one department that has access to the enterprise database, but I can’t create the new tables in it.

Currently the .mdb is on a network share that is painfully slow and occasionally has issues if the single user doesn’t close Access properly. I’m trying to sell them on a web application.

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  1. Editorial Team

    I’m only addressing the “other considerations” part of the question here:

    The biggest problem I have with linked tables is from a maintenance programmer’s perspective. I can’t tell you how often I’ve wasted time tracing linked tables because they were poorly documented. I STRONGLY recommend not even going the “linked tables” route, but if you do, I would strongly recommend some way of tracking your dependencies. (We use Blueprints from Pathway Systems for this).

    There are few things worse than having to support an app made up of multiple Access databases with linked tables going back and forth. And it’s an administrative nightmare for setting permissions if not handled correctly.

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