Limitation of using Microsoft Access

Hi
Can anyone tell me whats the main drawbacks of using Microsoft Access and what can i do to minimize those drawbacks?

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Originally posted by CoMMiE
Hi
Can anyone tell me whats the main drawbacks of using Microsoft Access and what can i do to minimize those drawbacks?

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Access, like any database, is designed to help you perform data operations like sorting, searching, updating, transforming etc. It is ideal for use with VB because VB and ACCESS were designed to work together (though some times it is hard to believe!). If you are asking about ACCESS vs Another Database like Oracle or SQL Server then you are going to have opinions that are based primarily on prejudice, and certain features that are important or not to particular applications. If you are asking about the advantages of a database VS Random access files or some other form of raw data storage then the answer should be dictated more by the data and the type of access that is required. For large volumes of sequential data like outputs from sensors it is often best to define a data structure and store the data sequentially, but for something like a store sales routine a database is almost the only answer. I hope that this addresses your question, if not please be a bit more specific, and I will try to help you.

Hunter

I believe the max file size of an Access database is 2 GB where as SQL and others are more equiped for LARGE databases.

Access also has a limit on the number of records per table. I think it's a 32bit restriction, whereas some others allow 64bits.

How about a little help with this silly problem i'm having?

I've done this with other databases, but when i try with Access, it gives me an error. First, password protect an Access database. Then try to connect to the database using ADO and a data control with this string:

sConnect = "Provider=Microsoft.Jet.OLEDB.3.51;Persist Security Info=False;Password='test1';Data Source=" & sDBname

I can't connect. It says that "The workgroup information file is missing or opened exclusively by another user". I would add in the user id tag (and i have - (User ID='shernet';)), but Access never asked for a user id.

Any suggestions??

I think there are two more considerations:

One is the security aspect, and another is the financial aspect.

A home user or a small entrepreneur who is not too keen about the security aspects, but keen about his pocket should go for Access, whereas big corporates and websites can go for Oracle or SQL Server which offer great security, but have a hefty price tag, too.

I personally think of Access as a miniature/scaled-down version of a RDBMS package, i.e. work with Access, get a feel for the RDBMS features it offers, and then move on to SQL Server or Oracle.