Tony's Microsoft Access Blog

Multi select files in the standard Windows File Open/Save dialog box

I hadn’t realized that this API code had been enhanced to support selecting multiple files until Tom Wickerath mentioned that he and Arvin Meyer had worked with Ken Getz to get this working.

API: Call the standard Windows File Open/Save dialog box

Version 2.0 of the Auto FE Updater

This release of the Auto FE Updater is a huge, huge improvement in developer ease of use. There's a wizard to get you going with the basic operations in less than a minute. Need to make a change to a setting? Just a few mouse clicks as all settings are updated by forms rather than having to use Notepad as in the past.

But it's even better. Now, with three mouse clicks, a formatted email containing a hyperlink for the users initial install of your app will be created.  Your users can be running your app with two or three mouse clicks.  (This depends on the number of hyperlink warning messages. (Sorry, nothing I can do about the email client security warnings.)

Have you looked at the Auto FE Updater in the past and decided it was rather ugly to use? The thought of editing configuration files using Notepad made you shudder with distaste?   Taking an hour or three to read somewhat confusing web pages was a task to be done next month or next year?   Visit http://www.autofeupdater.com and take a look.

(More screenshots will likely go up there in a day or so.)

I’d like to thank Tom Wickerath, Crystal Long, Clif McIrvin and Tom van Stiphout for all the suggestions and criticisms as I bounced ideas their way.   I’d also like to thank John Mishefske and Michel for their suggestions of using a listbox as an alternative to an ugly multi-line tab control.   See Interface Hall of Shame - Tabbed Dialogs down a short ways for what it could’ve looked like.  <smile>

10 steps to a better IT support process

I found the following blog posting to be quite useful to think about when you get a bug report from someone using your software.

10 steps to a better IT support process

Kodu - programming for kids

Kodu - programming for kids

“Kodu is a visual programming language made specifically for creating games. It is designed to be accessible for children and enjoyable for anyone.

Key Features

Kodu provides an end-to-end creative environment for designing, building, and playing your own new games.

    * High-level language incorporates real-world primitives: collision, color, vision
    * Runs on Xbox 360 and PC
    * Interactive terrain editor
    * Bridge and path builder
    * Terrain editor - create worlds of arbitrary shape and size
    * 20 different characters with different abilities”

Etc, etc.   Now this looks great!!!

From a link by Zac Woodall, Microsoft Access PM.

Office 2010 Prices Revealed

Office 2010 Prices Revealed   Hmm, it appears that there are errors in that article according to the comments.  Also see Microsoft reveals Office 2010 retail prices   Here’s the original article.  http://blogs.technet.com/office2010/archive/2010/01/05/what-the-office-team-will-be-talking-about-at-ces.aspx

Thanks to a newsgroup posting by Salad.  Yes, that’s the nom-de-plume he uses.

paydaytown.com and Focus Financial Corporation of Vancouver are scum

I have had at least six comments to blog postings stating

“msmvps.com rocks! I found a lot of new information on msmvps.com and I liked it a lot. Good job! I will be back.” x 2,

“Good Afternoon!!! msmvps.com is one of the most excellent resourceful websites of its kind. I take advantage of reading it every day. All the best.”

“Good Morning!!! msmvps.com is one of the most outstanding resourceful websites of its kind. I enjoy reading it every day. All the best.”

“Good Afternoon!!! msmvps.com is one of the best informational websites of its kind. I enjoy reading it every day. Keep it that way.”

“Hi!!! msmvps.com is one of the best innovative websites of its kind. I take advantage of reading it every day. All the best.”

Sounds real nice don’t they.  Makes a person feel real good about their blog postings.    Hmmm, those are rather generic comments aren’t they.   What’s in the Website field?  Ahhh, www.paydaytown.com.   Which in turn leads to Focus Financial Corporation.

Therefore I repeat my subject.  paydaytown.com and Focus Financial Corporation of Vancouver are scum

Edit

(Added “of Vancouver” to title and to above)

I apologize to Focus Financial Corporation of Virginia.  I should’ve done a quick search to see if Focus Financial Corporation was a duplicate name.  I will also add that as of this edit they have not contacted me to complain.  <smile>

My Analyzer ... the ultimate Data Dictionary Tool

My Analyzer ... the ultimate Data Dictionary Tool by Crystal Long, fellow Access MVP

With Crystal’s analyzer in your toolkit, you can get a handle on  what you have in Access ... structure, relationships, and  data.  It is, without a doubt, the most important set of  programs she has ever written for Access.

Version 1.83 of the Auto FE Updater is now available for download

The Auto FE Updater website has been had pages added with testimonials, feature list and many minor updates.  A big addition was a detailed step by step tutorial on getting started setting up your first configuration file.

The latest update to the utility makes the process of initial user setup much easier. You will now be able to click on a button in the utility and paste a link into an email for a new user of your application. You will need to create a shortcut on the server for this option using the ServerShortCutPath entry.

Other updates include

- using code signing so the "Open File - Security Warning: The publisher could not be verified. Are you sure you want to run this software?" message no longer appears.

- a warning message appears if running the utility on a local hard drive. This can be ignored by using a IgnoreLocalExecuteMsg=yes line in the AutoFEUpdarer INI file

- if required you can turn the read only attribute of copied files off by using the Set Read Only attribute = off. This means you can make the FE folder on the server read only for users.

- Added a Licensed To text box to all the forms.   See the voluntary licensing page for more details.

Many thanks to Clif McIrvin for all his work in figuring out an excellent solution in getting new users going on the Access app.

Sun Java is scum ware

There might be a more widely used term than scum ware but this suffices for me.  Sun Java just asked to install an update and, among other screens, gave me the following:

If I had a choice I’d dump Java.

Access and PowerShell

Fellow MVP Richard Siddaway has started a very interesting series of blog postings on using PowerShell and Access.  

Building Scalable Databases: Perspectives on the War on Soft Deletes

This blog posting titled Building Scalable Databases: Perspectives on the War on Soft Deletes is interesting reading describing what to do with deleted data.  The author comes to the correct conclusion, because he agrees with my viewpoint <smile>, that you model the business situation and mark records as inactive, canceled, etc.   You seldom need or want to truly delete data.

I used to have an inactive flag on the equipment in the Granite Fleet Manager.  That worked for quite a while until I had someone tell me that they have reserve equipment that is only used when the California wild fires are rampant.  These fire engines are paid for by the state of California and stashed at various fire halls in strategic locations.  They are all identical.  Thus fire crews from outside the affected crews have already trained on that equipment and know how to use it.   So now I have a status combo box which includes Reserve and Out of Service.  The Out of Service is meant for the situation where a given unit will be unavailable for a period of time longer than a few days.  For example maybe the boiler needs an inspection or the mechanic is waiting for parts to come from overseas.

P.S.  I almost always add a general purpose comment memo field to strategic tables such as the equipment and the service order field.  And you can search in those fields.   Because no matter how many explicit fields you create the users can always think up a few more but don’t have any place to put the random data.

Version 1.82 of the Auto FE Updater available for download

I made some foolish, although thankfully minor, mistakes in the last version.   Mostly because of not testing things sufficiently. I was in a hurry to get the Check for Updates enhancements available although that’s not a good excuse.

See the Download page for details and to download the latest update.  Or if you’re running version 1.80 or newer then run the Check for Updates menu item.

It’s official: Download Microsoft Office Professional Plus 2010 Beta

It’s official Download Microsoft Office Professional Plus 2010 Beta

Office 2010 Beta downloadable by MSDN, Technet subscribers today

Office 2010 Beta downloadable by MSDN, Technet subscribers today Public download is expected shortly

Two new versions of the Auto FE Updater are available.

To download the latest version click Version 1.81 

However in this release I added the ability to check for updates.  Please download Version 1.80, test it, copy it to your server and then see if the logic to check for updates works.  Then click on the Check for Updates menu item and ensure the program downloads version 1.81 and that it works. Please email if this does or doesn't work. Or post a note on this blog entry.  Note that I will not give out your email address to anyone else.

Enhancements

- Stop the user from seeing the Access 2007 Security Warning - Certain content in this database has been disabled. 

Set Access 2007 Trusted Location=yes can now be specified in the INI file.

All Access 2007 trusted locations are stored in the registry under
HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Office\12.0\Access\Security\Trusted Locations\
The Auto FE Updater utility creates registry keys based on the name of the INI file and creates the recommended sub keys with the update date and description of the key for full traceability in the future.  

Note that it is a common assumption that you must use Location0, Location1, etc as a sub key which is what Access 2007 creates.  This is an assumption.  Which I made as well so you're not the only one.

- My Documents can now be specified in the MainApps entry

- Check for updates to the Auto FE Updater program.

- Added a button to place the CMD launcher line into the clipboard.  When I recently did some testing of the Place shortcut target line into clipboard the text didn’t insert well into Outlook.  Actually Outlook deleted some double quotes for reasons known only to the Outlook product group.  So using the CMD launcher line works much better.

- Minor bug fixes and better error messages

Consider joining the Auto FE Updater group on LinkedIn to discuss the product, give me feedback or let me know what features you would like to see.. Or email me directly or post a comment to this blog entry.

VB6: Class not registered … MSSTDFMT.DLL

I was getting the following message when I copied the VB6 exe of the Auto FE Updater to a clean system to test the logic to check for and download updates to the Auto FE updater on my website.

Class not registered.
You need the following file to be installed on your machine. MSSTDFMT.DLL.

There is no mention of that DLL anywhere in the VB6 source code.   No reference.  I've done a Windows word search on that folder and can't find any mention on that DLL.

Some more searching in various online forums stated it is used to verify that a number format is applied to a control.   Which is the first time I've ever done that and it happened to be on that particular form.  Now it turns out you can't clear the Format property of a VB6 = control so you have to delete and recreate it.  And all is well.

Cost me about ten hours of trying to understand this problem.   Frig.

It didn’t help that Google Groups searching of NNTP newsgroups is getting way, way worse than usual.

This posting has been blogged in the hopes that Google will treat this post with a little more respect than hundreds of online forums postings stating “You just need to install that DLL on the users PC.”  No, that is not a good enough answer for me as the Auto FE Updater is a drag and drop deploy to the server.

Access 2010 and Sharepoint discussion part 2

In this blog entry Access 2010 and Sharepoint discussion I mentioned an interesting discussion   A second thread titled Access 2010 with Sharepoint 2010 was also started with a lot of additional interesting discussion.   Keep checking back on these threads.  David Fenton, as expected, is asking some tough questions as are others.  I expect this discussion to go on for a while. 

Note that you might want to click on the Options button on the right hand side of the grey bar and choose to view the thread as a tree.

How to be a Problem Solver

How to be a Problem Solver   Or how to deal with an angry customer.  In particular note the over communicate concept even if it’s nothing more than we’re still working on it and here’s what we’ve done so far.

Access 2010 and Sharepoint discussion

Bob Alston, a comp.databases.ms-access newsgroup regular, asked about Access 2010.  A very interesting discussion with fellow access MVP Albert Kallal with his usual lengthy and informative postings has started.   Albert has posted a nice collection of current links to the Access product group blog as well as his own video.

Windows 7 development reorganized

Steve Sinofsky took over management of the Windows development team after Windows Vista.  He was in charge of Office development for a number of years prior.  I’ve been reading snippets over the past few years about how the development methodology of Windows 7 had changed.  And how Windows Vista development methodology had become too complex.

Now an interesting post by Larry Osterman, long time MS Windows OS developer mentions that.  Windows 7 Reflections…   In particular read the second last paragraph, the last long paragraph.

Let me also add that I have a great deal of respect for the Microsoft, and other successful, large team development efforts.  As you can imagine I mostly work by myself on apps which I have created.  With Access when you’re testing things you generally only need to test one or a few related forms or reports.   Once the correct data gets into the table you’re done.    You don’t need to worry about this bit of external code or that global variable.  After all, in my apps, global variables come from the global options table.

But with the Auto FE Updater it’s quite different.   There are a lot of global variables and a minor change over here can cause significant problems in an unexpected area over there.  Another way of putting this is I really need to figure out some means of doing thorough automated testing with all the possible options.  But I’m too busy right now.  (Yeah, I can just see some of you shaking your head and thinking “Tony, you’re gonna get real busy if you don’t take the time now.)

My Granite Fleet Manager is being used by a number of Hutterite colonies.  Good, intelligent people but they’re not that computer literate.  Indeed my app may have been the reason they’re seeing a computer for the first time.  Every once in a while I’ll get a phone call about a bizarre problem.  Once I realize what they did I realize that I should’ve put better error checking in that particular field.  What they did makes sense from their viewpoint.  It just hadn’t occurred to me that someone might do whatever it is they did.

As a result I can now understand why there’s generally a developer and a tester working together.  And the more “twisty minded” the tester the better.

P.S.  I added an Auto FE Updater group in LinkedIn.  Feel free to join the group or email me your irritants, pain points and suggestions.