Re: Deploying new app. Upgrade theory
- From: "ARC" <andy@xxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Tue, 21 Aug 2007 12:33:21 GMT
After many posts before I started converting, I was going to go with A2000,
then was talked into A2007, I'll be risky here I suppose.
I thought the file attachment feature was interesting, but maybe unproven. I
have a slick little routine for setting a customer store folder for each
customer (optional of course), where if the customer does specify a customer
store folder, anytime they e-mail a quote or invoice, it get's auto-copied
to this folder. Then you can easily browse each customer's folder from the
customer screen, and a simple double-click to open the file. This is the
main reason I saw for not using their new feature. Also, normally the larger
the size of a DB, the slower.
Another reason I had to seriously consider moving to a new version of Access
is that my Access 97 started to miss-behave, and no reinstalling would fix
it. Frequently, it would start blue-screening out, and it became very hard
to develop, I was literally fighting to get a good version (blue screening
would frequently corrupt objects beyond repair). On reboot, many a time the
error from microsoft would state that a97 was no longer supported. I had a
few customer's with the same issue as I, and development was becomming next
to impossible. I loaded Access 2000, and the problem went away. (And I
agree A97 SP2 WAS very very stable, but is it possible that it wasn't as
stable with later O/S service packs / Vista?)
Thanks again for your posts,
Andy
"Tom van Stiphout" <no.spam.tom7744@xxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:mnskc31kp0o4decm10f7l258shg7sa8rhj@xxxxxxxxxx
On Mon, 20 Aug 2007 23:36:59 -0500, "ARC" <andy@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Yes, if you are not using any of the accdb features, stay with mdb.
The file attachments are neat and I could easily see a use for that in
your app, but I could also easily see a way to do it in mdb (as I have
done for years in a sql server db).
Tables start multiplying for good reasons if you create multiple
one-to-manys, for example if you have tblTalent and tblMovies with
tlMovies.LeadingActor and tblMovies.LeadingActress which would create
two tblTalent objects. For good reasons, I think.
A97 SP2 is one of the most stable versions I have ever worked with.
That's another check you could do. Is it really safe to start your
upgrade if not on the latest service pack? I would say no.
-Tom.
We're thinking along the same lines. I was considering scanning the 97 db
for things for bad / orphaned data, and blanks where there shouldn't be,
etc. That's a great idea of getting sample db's, as they'll tell me what
types of things to look for when I'm writing code to test 97 db's.
I started out programming in acc97 for a company where I could simply make
the BE database changes. Those were the days! So much easier to make table
design changes when new items came about. :(
Do you think, just to be safe, I should go with all Access 2007 .mdb's,
rather than .accdb's? As I understand it from the Access site, you only
need
.accdb if you use memo history, attaching files to embed within the db
(which I'd never dream of in a big app), or having multiple selections per
id. I won't be using any of those.
Thanks for the tips, Tom!
P.S. I guess the reason I steered clear of relationships was I found the
Access 97 relationships window to be buggy. You'd close the window,
re-open,
and tables would start multiplying! Before you knew it, there would be
hundreds of tables in there, so my boss at the time made a decision to do
away with using them, and we handled all RE ourselves (which we did quite
well with thinking through all the possibilities). I guess a programmer's
style is definetely formed from early jobs. I did read, however, about
bugs
with Acc 97 relationships, especially something about importing objects
and
always un-checking relationships.
"Tom van Stiphout" <no.spam.tom7744@xxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:dmokc359aiaht0kartlsuebnrgm1bdjjpp@xxxxxxxxxx
On Mon, 20 Aug 2007 22:51:47 -0500, "ARC" <andy@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
(sorry about the double post)
Ah, I see. A commercial app. Much more fun.
We just had a conversation in another thread about relationships or
the absence thereof. So I'm concerned if you want to import bad data
into a good design. There are ways to do it; you just want to avoid RI
conflicts.
If I were in your shoes I would invite the first 50 clients responding
to your invitation to do the upgrade for free. You need sample
databases to test the upgrade code. Tell them they have to send their
BE now, and again in a few weeks when your code is more robust. Then
they send it on Fri, and they will receive the converted one before
Mon.
Offer this upgrade service to all others for a modest fee.
Be sure you make backups (I would make more than one) just in case you
need to rollback because a crash occurred during the upgrade. There
are ways to detect a crash (I would use the registry).
I agree about importing the data of a table at a time. Of course
because of RI that has to happen in a certain order. Parents before
children.
What would you do to the A97 db before you start the data import? I
would at least repair & compact it. Scan the design for changes in the
table structure. Scan for bad data (read the values of all fields of
all rows of all tables). If you have thousands of customers, there are
at least a few with a thorougly messed up db.
-Tom.
I wish it were that easy. I should have spelled out from the start that
the
user's are not local. Instant Quote Pro is the software in question, and
the
user's are in many different countries and locations.
From day 1, my front / back end has been in Access 97, so now both arein
2007 on my development machine. I can't see having the FE as acc 2007,
and
leaving the BE in 97, as it seems that could lead to problems. Also
there's
pressure over the years from my customer base to upgrade the BE data to
a
newer version.
Andy
"Tom van Stiphout" <no.spam.tom7744@xxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:7inkc3lsho55gdj50drc1qb9cgpn3adqcv@xxxxxxxxxx
On Mon, 20 Aug 2007 14:08:39 GMT, "ARC" <andy@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
I'm not getting it.
Upgrading typically involves upgrading/creating a new front-end (FE)
by the developer only. The back-end (BE) stays on the server. All
users get the new FE, and you're done.
Now you may well want to upgrade your BE as well. So kick all users
out of the app for an hour, upgrade the BE manually, distribute the FE
to everyone, have them launch it, it connects to the upgraded BE, and
you're done.
Tony Toews has a auto-updater utility on his site.
-Tom.
Hello again,
I'm close to the end of converting a large app from access 97 to 2007.
I have many users on the old system, with the db's in Access 97, and
here's
what I'm thinking of doing to convert the older folks db's. I've
changed
tables around a bit, added new tables, and deleted un-used fields,
otherwise
I would do a convert. I'm going to write a routine that will do the
following:
1) Upon launching the app, if I detect that the database is blank,
I'll
open
a dialog asking if they want to begin a new database, or import from
an
existing db.
2) If they choose existing, I'll ask them to browse to their database
files
that were in Access 97. (This is a parts, customers, quoting/invoicing
program, so maybe I'll give them an additional option to just import
parts
and customers if they want to start with a cleaner db)
3) One table at a time, I'll import the data, from the Acc 97 db's to
the
blank acc 2007 db's, using sql and runquery commands. At the moment,
I'm
not
sure how hard this will be, or whether I would need to temporarily
link
to
the old tables or use the transferdatabase commands.
4) I'll then do the same for the handful of additional local .mdb's,
where
I'll import the data into fresh/blank access 2007 databases.
Does this seem like a sound approach? Any pitfalls, or better
alternate
solutions?
Many Thanks,
Andy
.
- References:
- Deploying new app. Upgrade theory
- From: ARC
- Re: Deploying new app. Upgrade theory
- From: Tom van Stiphout
- Re: Deploying new app. Upgrade theory
- From: ARC
- Re: Deploying new app. Upgrade theory
- From: Tom van Stiphout
- Re: Deploying new app. Upgrade theory
- From: ARC
- Re: Deploying new app. Upgrade theory
- From: Tom van Stiphout
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