1083
CHAPTER
Distributing Access
Applications
IN THIS CHAPTER
Setting options for your
current databaseMaking sure your application
works before you distribute itPutting the finishing touches
on your applicationHardening your applicationY
ou’re lucky if you have the luxury of developing only single-user, in-
house applications and you never have to worry about distributing an
application within a company or across the country. Most developers
have to prepare an Access application for distribution sooner or later. You
don’t even have to develop commercial software to deal with distribution —
when you develop an application to be run on a dozen workstations in one
organization, you need to distribute your application in some form or other.
This chapter covers the issues relevant to distributing Access applications.
However, because some of these items — such as error handling and split-
ting tables — are covered in detail elsewhere in this book, this chapter
focuses primarily on setting database options when preparing your applica-
tion for distribution.
You need to be concerned with many issues when preparing an Access appli-
cation for distribution. Distributing your application properly not only
makes installing and using the application easier for the end user, but also
makes updating and maintaining the application easier for you, the applica-
tion’s developer. In addition, the support required for an application is
greatly decreased by properly preparing and packaging the database and
associated files for distribution.
On the CD-ROM
This chapter uses the Chapter31.accdb database. If you haven’t already
copied it onto your machine from the CD, you’ll need to do so now.
Tip
Most of the techniques described in this chapter have been applied to the sam-
ple database. In order to open it so that you can see the options, open Access
first, then hold down the Shift key while you click on the name of the database
to open. Don’t release the Shift key until the database has opened.