Best way to distribute an Access 2007 db front-end to corporate users?

[Tordek]

Hello all,

A quick question:
I need to distribute an Access 2007 db front-end to corporate users.
This .accdr front-end file connects to another .accdb file located in one of our servers.
The front-end is Chronos.accdr
The back-end is Chronos_RemoteDB.accdb

Now, here lies the problem: Periodically I release new versions of the front-end with various changes and updates but I don't have a simple way of distributing this to the FE users.

Currently, what is being done is putting the new front-end file on a SharePoint location and distributing the link thru exchange email. But the user has to get the new front-end and replace it on its local drive.
(An old problem with this distribution was that users were starting the application with old versions and corrupting the data, but I solved that by doing a simple version check with data on the server)
Consider that the users only have common MS Office knowledge at best.

I would appreciate any suggestion or website link.

Thanks!

 

[Tordek]

Just found a suitable answer for my problem.
http://www.btabdevelopment.com/ts/freetools

Leaving the link here just in case anyone needs it.

 

[PTNL]

Just found a suitable answer for my problem.
http://www.btabdevelopment.com/ts/freetools

Leaving the link here just in case anyone needs it.

Interesting utility. Thanks for posting that link.

Another alternative would be to do a web service "version" check, and prompt users to download the new version if their reported version is not the latest returned from the web service.

 

[renixinq]

1. Don't use Access. Seriously. I'm not trying to be a jerk but in the long run Access causes more problems than it solves. If money is a factor SQL Express is a viable option for your back end. For front end I would suggest going with a web portal. Yes it requires a little more work on the coding side but there's pretty much nothing in Access that can't be done in ASP.NET or some other web language.

2. In the meantime because I know you can't break away from the train that is Access immediately, you can use a group policy to manage the front end situation if you're using AD. Just write out a little spot in the registry that stores the version and having the group policy check the version and if there is a mismatch have the group policy do the update. Users love it because no matter what computer they go to it's there and you'll love it because it solves your problem of having to update every computer with the newest version.

Hope that helps.