Recently, I upgraded my workstation to a newer machine with Windows Vista and picked up the latest version of Office 2007 to go with it.
I'll post another day concerning Vista in more detail but for today I just want to pass on my experience with our Access ADP project created in Office 2003 and now being opened by several clients in Office 2007.
We use our ADP project for various back-end administrative purposes for which web development (which is always more time consuming) is not warranted. Since we have no Windows forms programmers on staff, we rely on Access because we DO have a key staff-member who can develop in Access. This frees up more of my time so I can concentrate on our Inter/Intra-Net development using ASP.Net.
At any rate, opening the ADP project created in Office 2003 in Office 2007 yielded, shall we say, less than desirable results. Navigation through the forms was very, very slow, and I found all sort of alarmist posts on UseNet from people claiming "The Sky Is Falling" and denouncing the new Access 2007 version as buggy beta material.
I found a Microsoft hot-fix offered to resolve the problem:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/936519
In order to obtain the hot-fix, I needed to call them directly. Of course the 1st level phone staff tried to get me to pay for the support, but I insisted it was a hot fix issue offered for free and then they transferred me.
Resolution
I installed the hot-fix but it did not seem to resolve all my issues. The app still ran very slowly, to the point of being unusable. The final fix was pretty easy. I would have been reluctant to attempt it without MS holding my hand, but it was actually a very simple procedure and I shouldn't have hesitated.
I created a NEW Access ADP in 2007 and then chose from the External Data, import and selected the old Access ADP project. I navigated through all the windows for Forms, Macros, etc. Tables and Queries are not applicable in this environment so they did not need to be selected. I imported all, a process that took about 5 or 10 minutes for this project.
Then I save the new file as an Access ADP 2003 compatible project, and voila, it WORKS!
The only other issue I had was that several button event handlers were using subs to handle events and for some reason, the new version of outlook did not like that. I converted the subs to functions and BLAM, I had a working version of the project which could be opened in both Access 2003 and Access 2007.
An associate was experiencing some crashes with the new file until she updated her system.
Also, since we have a routine that extracts image files out of SQL to display in reports, they are saved as temp files on the hard drive. Despite the fact that the project is stored in a trusted location and I have Admin permissions, in order to allow the ADP to write files to my drive I had to turn UAC off (gasp)! I could not afford any more research time to get it working otherwise so if anyone has any suggestions I'd love to hear from you...
I hope this helps dispel some of the rumors and frustrations surrounding Access ADP functionality under Vista and Office 2007.
Monday, August 6, 2007
Friday, August 3, 2007
Defining My Role and Our Technology
My primary role for our organization is the Lead Developer. While we have other people on staff that do graphic arts and some minor database development and document publishing, the realm of implementing the technology that drives our business is mine.
Last year we upgraded our hardware and software to utilize Microsoft Server 2003 and SQL Server 2005 to drive our websites, co-located at a local hosting facility. Our web sites are our primary assets, and we use them to establish ourselves as an online media presence and provide a publicly accessible data network of professionals, sort of like the MySpace of our industry.
I have already rewritten our main Internet based networking application and newsletter mailing systems (cores of our business) in ASP.Net 2.0 / VB. We are beginning to use AJAX in our online applications and I'm excited to begin learning SilverLight also to present rich media to our audience.
I use Visual Studio 2005, and more recently Office 2007 and Windows Vista on my workstation. Although there were a few hiccups with an Access ADP we use for back-end administration purposes, I would say that I love both Office 2007 and Vista. I found tweaking Vista's security features was necessary to allow me to function without ripping my hair out, the new GUIs in both Windows and Office are impressive. I like change, I was getting bored of running Win 2K on our workstations anyway!
In coming blog posts I will go into much more specific detail about the challenges facing my position, but I wanted to begin by giving you an idea of what type of development environment I work in.
Your comments are welcome.
Last year we upgraded our hardware and software to utilize Microsoft Server 2003 and SQL Server 2005 to drive our websites, co-located at a local hosting facility. Our web sites are our primary assets, and we use them to establish ourselves as an online media presence and provide a publicly accessible data network of professionals, sort of like the MySpace of our industry.
Apart from some occasional design elements passed to me at my request from our creative department - another department consisting of just one individual - I'm a stand-alone coder and our sites are a huge plumbing project of mixed classic ASP/VBScript and ASP.Net pages. Since the start of my employment here 5 years ago, I've re-written all of our pages and replaced nearly all of our legacy systems with our own home-brewed web projects.
But just like cleaning house in a large mansion, by the time we have repaired, modified, and rewritten the various pages and functions that make up our online presence, it's time to go back to the beginning and start over again.
I have already rewritten our main Internet based networking application and newsletter mailing systems (cores of our business) in ASP.Net 2.0 / VB. We are beginning to use AJAX in our online applications and I'm excited to begin learning SilverLight also to present rich media to our audience.
I use Visual Studio 2005, and more recently Office 2007 and Windows Vista on my workstation. Although there were a few hiccups with an Access ADP we use for back-end administration purposes, I would say that I love both Office 2007 and Vista. I found tweaking Vista's security features was necessary to allow me to function without ripping my hair out, the new GUIs in both Windows and Office are impressive. I like change, I was getting bored of running Win 2K on our workstations anyway!
In coming blog posts I will go into much more specific detail about the challenges facing my position, but I wanted to begin by giving you an idea of what type of development environment I work in.
Your comments are welcome.
Welcome to My Nightmare
Welcome to my blog!
I work for a relatively small Internet media corporation located in the U.S. We run an online B2B trade publication comprised of several websites, and an electronic newsletter. It's my job to manage just about everything tech related as it concerns our operations.
On most days, that means I am responsible for the development, maintenance and oversight of our websites, databases, servers, workstations, printers, telephone equipment, and anything else that has wires in it, including the coffee pot.
Sometimes I wake in the morning thinking "Pinch me, I'm dreaming!" because I love technology and appreciate my job, it's a little better and more interesting then flipping burgers. Other times, I'm screaming "Someone wake me up!" because Freddy from Nightmare on Elm Street is chasing me through my office threatening to carve me up with a Blade server and banish me to tech nerd hell where some fat guy with glasses keeps bugging me about his prized red Swingline stapler.
In the spirit of trying to keep this blog generic, anonymous, and appealing to a wide audience, I will attempt to discuss the business practices and technology issues that challenge our particular market sector in non-specific terms. In other words, I won't discuss the exact business I'm in or disclose my name or our business name.
Like most businesses in the US, we are classified as Small Business. Although revenue for our corp has recently exceeded the million dollar a year mark, it's a family owned business and our daily process is unlikely to change much. It's the typical small business routine you might expect in any office with between 5 and 20 employees.
The daily struggles of a technology professional in this sort of eclectic role can be all at once mundane, frustrating, intriguing and terrifying. I'll be maintaining this blog to document our progress as a corporation, and to chronicle my own personal successes and failures in an effort to solicit feedback from my peers.
So read along, and please provide constructive criticism to help me toward my goal of self improvement.
Thanks!
Worker Bee
I work for a relatively small Internet media corporation located in the U.S. We run an online B2B trade publication comprised of several websites, and an electronic newsletter. It's my job to manage just about everything tech related as it concerns our operations.
On most days, that means I am responsible for the development, maintenance and oversight of our websites, databases, servers, workstations, printers, telephone equipment, and anything else that has wires in it, including the coffee pot.
Sometimes I wake in the morning thinking "Pinch me, I'm dreaming!" because I love technology and appreciate my job, it's a little better and more interesting then flipping burgers. Other times, I'm screaming "Someone wake me up!" because Freddy from Nightmare on Elm Street is chasing me through my office threatening to carve me up with a Blade server and banish me to tech nerd hell where some fat guy with glasses keeps bugging me about his prized red Swingline stapler.
In the spirit of trying to keep this blog generic, anonymous, and appealing to a wide audience, I will attempt to discuss the business practices and technology issues that challenge our particular market sector in non-specific terms. In other words, I won't discuss the exact business I'm in or disclose my name or our business name.
Like most businesses in the US, we are classified as Small Business. Although revenue for our corp has recently exceeded the million dollar a year mark, it's a family owned business and our daily process is unlikely to change much. It's the typical small business routine you might expect in any office with between 5 and 20 employees.
The daily struggles of a technology professional in this sort of eclectic role can be all at once mundane, frustrating, intriguing and terrifying. I'll be maintaining this blog to document our progress as a corporation, and to chronicle my own personal successes and failures in an effort to solicit feedback from my peers.
So read along, and please provide constructive criticism to help me toward my goal of self improvement.
Thanks!
Worker Bee
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