Microsoft Access Pdf
Uwe Müller
Microsoft Access is a database management system (DBMS) from Microsoft that combines the relational Access Database Engine (ACE) with a graphical user interface and software-development tools. It is a member of the Microsoft 365 suite of applications, included in the Professional and higher editions or sold separately.
Microsoft Access stores data in its own format based on the Access Database Engine (formerly Jet Database Engine). It can also import or link directly to data stored in other applications and databases.[6]
Software developers, data architects and power users can use Microsoft Access to develop application software. Like other Microsoft Office applications, Access is supported by Visual Basic for Applications (VBA), an object-based programming language that can reference a variety of objects including the legacy DAO (Data Access Objects), ActiveX Data Objects, and many other ActiveX components. Visual objects used in forms and reports expose their methods and properties in the VBA programming environment, and VBA code modules may declare and call Windows operating system operations.
Microsoft's first attempt to sell a relational database product was during the mid 1980s, when Microsoft obtained the license to sell R:Base.[10] In the late 1980s Microsoft developed its own solution codenamed Omega.[11] It was confirmed in 1988 that a database product for Windows and OS/2 was in development.[12][13] It was going to include the "EB" Embedded Basic language,[11] which was going to be the language for writing macros in all Microsoft applications,[14] but the unification of macro languages did not happen until the introduction of Visual Basic for Applications (VBA). Omega was also expected to provide a front end to the Microsoft SQL Server.[15] The application was very resource-hungry, and there were reports that it was working slowly on the 386 processors that were available at the time.[16] It was scheduled to be released in the 1st quarter of 1990,[17] but in 1989 the development of the product was reset[10][18] and it was rescheduled to be delivered no sooner than in January 1991.[19] Parts of the project were later used for other Microsoft projects: Cirrus (codename for Access) and Thunder (codename for Visual Basic, where the Embedded Basic engine was used).[10][11] After Access's premiere, the Omega project was demonstrated in 1992 to several journalists and included features that were not available in Access.[20]
After the Omega project was scrapped, some of its developers were assigned to the Cirrus project (most were assigned to the team which created Visual Basic).[10] Its goal was to create a competitor for applications like Paradox or dBase that would work on Windows.[21] After Microsoft acquired FoxPro, there were rumors that the Microsoft project might get replaced with it,[22] but the company decided to develop them in parallel. It was assumed that the project would make use of Extensible Storage Engine (Jet Blue)[23] but, in the end, only support for Jet Database Engine (Jet Red) was provided. The project used some of the code from both the Omega project and a pre-release version of Visual Basic.[11] In July 1992, betas of Cirrus shipped to developers[24] and the name Access became the official name of the product.[25] "Access" was originally used for an older terminal emulation program from Microsoft. Years after the program was abandoned, they decided to reuse the name here.[26]
Microsoft released Access version 1.0 on November 13, 1992, and an Access 1.1 release in May 1993 to improve compatibility with other Microsoft products and to include the Access Basic programming language.
With Access v2.0, Microsoft specified the minimum hardware requirements to be Microsoft Windows v3.1 with 4 MB of RAM required, 6 MB RAM recommended; 8 MB of available hard disk space required, 14 MB hard disk space recommended. The product shipped on seven 1.44 MB diskettes. The manual shows a 1994 copyright date.
As a part of the Microsoft Office 4.3 Professional with Book Shelf, Microsoft Access 2.0 was included with first sample databases "NorthWind Trader" which covered every possible aspect of programming your own database. The Northwind Traders sample first introduced the Main Switchboard features new to Access 2.0 for 1994.The photo of Andrew Fuller, record #2 of that sample database, was the individual that presented and worked with Microsoft to provide such an outstanding example database.
Versions 3.0 and 3.5 of Jet Database Engine (used by Access 7.0 and the later-released Access 97, respectively) had a critical issue which made these versions of Access unusable on a computer with more than 1 GB of memory.[28] While Microsoft fixed this problem for Jet 3.5/Access 97 post-release, it never fixed the issue with Jet 3.0/Access 95.
Microsoft Access 2007 introduced a new database format: ACCDB. It supports links to SharePoint lists and complex data types such as multi-value and attachment fields. These new field types are essentially recordsets in fields and allow the storage of multiple values or files in one field. Microsoft Access 2007 also introduced File Attachment field, which stored data more efficiently than the OLE (Object Linking and Embedding) field.
Microsoft Access 2010 introduced a new version of the ACCDB format supported hosting Access Web services on a SharePoint 2010 server. For the first time, this allowed Access applications to be run without having to install Access on a user's PC and was the first support for Mac users. Any user on the SharePoint site with sufficient rights could use the Access Web service. A copy of Access was still required for the developer to create the Access Web service, and the desktop version of Access remained part of Access 2010. The Access Web services were not the same as the desktop applications. Automation was only through the macro language (not VBA) which Access automatically converted to JavaScript. The data was no longer in an Access database but SharePoint lists. An Access desktop database could link to the SharePoint data, so hybrid applications were possible so that SharePoint users needing basic views and edits could be supported while the more sophisticated, traditional applications could remain in the desktop Access database.
Microsoft Access 2013 offers traditional Access desktop applications plus a significantly updated SharePoint 2013 web service.[29] The Access Web model in Access 2010 was replaced by a new architecture that stores its data in actual SQL Server databases. Unlike SharePoint lists, this offers true relational database design with referential integrity, scalability, extensibility and performance one would expect from SQL Server.[30] The database solutions that can be created on SharePoint 2013 offer a modern user interface designed to display multiple levels of relationships that can be viewed and edited, along with resizing for different devices and support for touch. The Access 2013 desktop is similar to Access 2010 but several features were discontinued including support for Access Data Projects (ADPs),[clarification needed] pivot tables, pivot charts, Access data collections, source code control, replication, and other legacy features.[31] Access desktop database maximum size remained 2 GB (as it has been since the 2000 version).
Microsoft Access is no longer included in the one-time-purchase version of Microsoft Office 2021, but remains within the Microsoft 365 counterpart, as Apps for business and Business Standard editions. Features new to Access 2021 include an extended-precision date/time data type[32] and dark theme support.[33]
In addition to using its own database storage file, Microsoft Access also may be used as the 'front-end' of a program while other products act as the 'back-end' tables, such as Microsoft SQL Server and non-Microsoft products such as Oracle and Sybase. Multiple backend sources can be used by a Microsoft Access Jet Database (ACCDB and MDB formats). Similarly, some applications such as Visual Basic, ASP.NET, or Visual Studio .NET will use the Microsoft Access database format for its tables and queries. Microsoft Access may also be part of a more complex solution, where it may be integrated with other technologies such as Microsoft Excel, Microsoft Outlook, Microsoft Word, Microsoft PowerPoint and ActiveX controls.
Access tables support a variety of standard field types, indices, and referential integrity including cascading updates and deletes. Access also includes a query interface, forms to display and enter data, and reports for printing. The underlying Access database, which contains these objects, is multi-user and handles record-locking.
Repetitive tasks can be automated through macros with point-and-click options. It is also easy to place a database on a network and have multiple users share and update data without overwriting each other's work. Data is locked at the record level which is significantly different from Excel which locks the entire spreadsheet.
There are template databases within the program and for download from Microsoft's website. These options are available upon starting Access and allow users to enhance a database with predefined tables, queries, forms, reports, and macros. Database templates support VBA code, but Microsoft's templates do not include VBA code.
Programmers can create solutions using VBA, which is similar to Visual Basic 6.0 (VB6) and used throughout the Microsoft Office programs such as Excel, Word, Outlook and PowerPoint. Most VB6 code, including the use of Windows API calls, can be used in VBA. Power users and developers can extend basic end-user solutions to a professional solution with advanced automation, data validation, error trapping, and multi-user support.
The number of simultaneous users that can be supported depends on the amount of data, the tasks being performed, level of use, and application design. Generally accepted limits are solutions with 1 GB or less of data (Access supports up to 2 GB) and it performs quite well with 100 or fewer simultaneous connections (255 concurrent users are supported).[34] This capability is often a good fit for department solutions. If using an Access database solution in a multi-user scenario, the application should be "split". This means that the tables are in one file called the back end (typically stored on a shared network folder) and the application components (forms, reports, queries, code, macros, linked tables) are in another file called the front end. The linked tables in the front end point to the back end file. Each user of the Access application would then receive his or her own copy of the front end file.
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