Print MS Access Report on a PC that doesn't have MS Access installed question

[Avatarp]

Guess it is Crystal

[Hack]

I don't know what that means, but you can't use Access reports on a machine that doesn't have Access installed simply because in order to print the report the Access Database has to be open, and that can only be done through Access.

[Caskbill]

You can open an Access database directly, and you can read all the data.

You can create your own reports and could even make them look somewhat like an Access report if you want but you basically would have to program everything from scratch. It would be a lot of programming.

You would have to basically duplicate, somehow, every query used, and then on top of that, gather it all and put it into a report of some kind.

Basically you would be writing software that duplicates what MS Access does.

[Hack]

You can query an Access database on a system that doesn't have Access installed all day long with no issues.

But, the issue comes when you try to use something like a report. Running that would require the user have Access itself installed.

[dilettante]

An "Access database" is a Jet database with a bunch of Access code, forms, etc. embedded in it as metadata tables. None of this is accessible from VB6 in any meaningful way, and none of it substitutes for the Access runtime, which is where those reports come from.

Of course since the Access runtime is now freely available, one can easily create installable Access applications now that do not require Access on target machines. Prior to (Office 2002?) you had to license Office Developer to do this.

Correction:
The licensing model is confusing. Until Office 2007 you had to have another license for VSTO in order to legally redistribute the runtime (though it is included in Office 2003 you can't redeploy it).

Access 2007 Download: Access Runtime. Note that you need Access Run Time: Alternative Version if you want to deploy on Win2K, NT 4.0, or Win9X.

One last note:
Though the Access 2007 runtime is free, you can't use it to develop unless you have a license for the full Access 2007 product.