Eliminating differences between in two ways of opening an application

  • Thread starter Thread starter Alp
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A

Alp

Hi Experts,

I know the subject sounds quite weird but just couldn't find a short way to
describe the issue. Here's the problem:

The application MyApp.mdb resides on a system in a network, say A which is
on a network.
1) When MyApp is run via a shortcut on system B MyApp seems to get some
system values from B which results in some errors.
2) When Access is run on B first and then MyApp.mdb is selected via the
normal File Open dialogue (going to A via network neighborhood). This way
MyApp runs properly obtaining no system B origined information.

Any clues you can help me out with? How can I find out what is happening in
second method which is not done in first? Please do let me know if further
info would be needed.

Thanks in advance.

Alp
 
When you say "resides on a ... network", do you mean you have the back-end
data located on a server? Or are you saying you created an application,
then placed it on the network? If the latter, there are a couple things to
(re-)consider...

If you don't have your application split into a front-end (screens, queries,
reports, etc.) and a back-end (data only), you will find it difficult to
work with changes to the front-end components without affecting every user.
Moreover, if the front-end (or even the entire application) "lives" on the
LAN, you have the potential for serious problems when more than one user
tries to "drive" it.

The common and less-troubled design is to place data only (the back-end) on
the LAN, and to place a copy of the front-end on each user's PC, connected
to (linked to) the back-end data.
 
Hi Jeff,

Thanks for the reply. The application is a FE/BE application but I have
chosen to have both on the server. So the users are to reach the FE by the
shortcut on their PC's. Thus what are your suggestions to re-consider?

Thanks,

Alp
 
Alp said:
Hi Jeff,

Thanks for the reply. The application is a FE/BE application but I have
chosen to have both on the server. So the users are to reach the FE by the
shortcut on their PC's. Thus what are your suggestions to re-consider?
Click to expand...

* you still have the local Access instance running (on the PC of the
user) which may account for some differences
* what if more people access the FE simultaneously? If you don't have
local objects (I mean, local to the FE) that is not harmful; but as we
have experienced, you always have local query objects.
 
My suggestion is to put FE copies on each PC, rather than a single one,
shared, on the LAN.
 
Hi Bas and Jeff,

Thank you for your suggestions. There are several issues to why I chose not
to place a copy of the FE on each user's system and one of them is actually
the source of this problem. There are routines that use the server's system
properties and thus if I place a copy on each user, it will only put more
burden of "adjusting" each single copy which in turn would be more
cumbersome delivering updates.
The main issue here is "if I can somehow figure out" what Access does (or
doesn't) in the two seperate methods of opening an application.
I'm still working on an alternative solution but any ideas are most welcome.

Alp
 
Well, finally I have resolved the issue(s) by writing a few functions
without altering the whole initialization logic. They are based on where the
application is called from.

Thanks for your suggestions though.

Happy New Year!

Alp
 
Alp

I'm unfamiliar with the "adjusting" you refer to. I have installed several
multi-user systems, using a FE copy on each user's PC. I have never
encountered an issue. Could you describe what you are encountering?
 
Jeff,

With the recent codes that I have written to resolve the issue actually the
only thing left is dealing with the linking of the tables in the back-end.
If I can come-up with a code that could automatically (some what) find the
backend and perform the linking, then I could consider distributing the FE
to individual user systems.

The "adjusting" I was refering to was related to the initialization and
license key routines that I have already incorporated to the application of
which, the license key part was giving me the headache. But as I said, it is
now resolved.

But I still am eager to know why access operates/behaves differently when it
first it is opened, then the application is manually selected and run as
compared to opening from a shortcut that defines the application to run. My
initialization routines deals with information collected from the system.
Via shortcut the local system's info was being collected as opposed to the
server's info being collected in the other method.

Alp
 
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