Tony's Microsoft Access Blog

Classic WTF: Fisher Price Technology Integration

Ryan H was pretty excited to start his new job as a developer. But his
excitement quickly faded after he started. It didn't fade into
apprehension, disappointment, or regret -- just into nothing; he
simply stopped feeling anything at all. This type of apathy is to be
expected when one is given the type of assignment that Ryan was given:
absolutely nothing. Ryan's day to day job was to sit and patiently
wait for the company to start up a project.

Classic WTF: Fisher Price Technology Integration

You have to read to the end.

BTW if you are reading my blog you should really be reading the WTF blog too. 

Darn - I should've checked Snopes

I reposted another blog regarding fuel gauge pump handles in cars - Duh! - I've never noticed that - Fuel Gauges.  Turns out it's an urban legend - Fuel Icon Foolery.  <sigh>  And it made so much sense too.

Thanks to fellow Access MVP Walter  Niesz for alerting me.

A tip on searching Google

I was doing a search on PDFCreator and "Microsoft Access".  Google was being helpful by asking "Did you mean: "PDF Creator" "microsoft access"  ".   I can live with that.  

However Google was then showing me all kinds of hits with PDF Creator.    Which I did not want.  Hello Google!!!!   That's very annoying behavior.

The key though is to put quotes around the word PDFCreator.  So now my search term is "PDFCreator" "microsoft access".   And that gave me the results that were slightly more useful. 

But only slightly more useful.  Google searching is getting fairly useless these days when it comes to searching for obscure problems especially now that Google is indexing NNTP newsgroups as forums in their Web search.  Way too many useless hits.  But I still use Google.  <sigh>

Still way too many hits from those web sites featuring NNTP forums and Google ads.  Thus Google is making money of my 33,708 postings (at this moment in time) from *rsehole web forum sites.   I'm sure Google is in no hurry to fix this problem that is making them money but upsetting the folks who use their search engine.

10 good reasons not to provide free tech support

10 good reasons not to provide free tech support An amusing read.  Thankfully I've never had any situation too close to those mentioned.   I will also add though i won't spend more than five or ten minutes working on a friend's computer problem unless they're a very good friend.

Access 2003 post SP3 hotfix - combo box and list box controls

"Combo box controls and list box controls display no value or incorrect values in Access 2003 after you install Office 2003 Service Pack 3."  And a few more problems SP3 introduced. 

Description of the Access 2003 post-Service Pack 3 hotfix package: December 18, 2007 - 945674.

Returning multiple files from the File Open Dialog API?

The above question was asked in the newsgroups - File Dialog Using API.  Tom Wickerath, fellow MVP, found the answer in another newsgroup posting Get External Data.   

Note that Doug Steele, fellow MVP, commented "When using multiselect, what's returned is the folder name, followed by a Null character, followed by the name of the first file, followed by a Null character and so on until the last file name, which is followed by two Null characters."   (In VBA the Null character is the constant vbNull.)

The simple single file API solution is found at the Access Web page Call the standard Windows File Open/Save dialog box.

Added: An alternate solution can be found at the following page GetOpenFileName: File Open Common Dialog Basics.  This solution requires that you pass in the OFN_ALLOWMULTISELECTflag.  Which is shown in the Command1_Click() subroutine.

The Twelve Threats of Christmas

I hate that syrupy, lousy Christmas music you've been hearing in malls and stores recently.  But this one is much, much better.   Thanks to fellow MVP Crystal for the link.  The 12 Threats of Christmas (And they only do one run through of the lyrics rather than twelve.  Thankfully.)

Did you know that in the relationships window ...

Did you know that in the Access relationships window you can right click on the table and edit the table design?

(And yes I am spending time with the family and such.)

Write a list and check it twice

A very interesting post on relating drastically reducing hospital infections and smooth code check ins.  Write a list and check it twice.

Now how does this apply to us Access folks?   I'm not quite sure.   I do testing as I add new features to Access software but that's about it.  I don't have any automated testing.  As much as anything because, unlike operating system software or application software such as Access or Excel we don't have much inter related code.  Generally our code means one form updates one table.  (And each subform updates another table.)  It's the content of the tables that are inter related.

Yes, we do have modules of code but again they're executed from forms and generally they update one or two tables.

Now one thing that I occasionally have is an unnormalized grand total.  For example in my Fleet Management system there is a total service order cost which is the sum of the parts, labour and external invoices.  That only makes sense as otherwise on some reports I'd be doing a lot of extra reads of the three child tables to fetch that total.  This is the same as your bank account balance. 

I do have a routine which the user can run which compares the total present on the service order record against the child tables.  If there is a difference I offer to fix it up.  I also log the message to an error log table so I can review it myself.   And after working with forms that update those values I will run that routine myself to ensure I haven't missed anything.

Once I add in the capability of automatically downloading updates to my software then I'll be testing that each time I put a new version on my web site.

My Auto FE Updater needs automated testing.  Which I will be adding to it as I add some long overdue enhancements to it.  But that's not the typical Access app.

So what can us Access developers do for a check list before releasing software to the users?

Microsoft Terminology: PM (Program Manager)

I felt this was an interesting blog posting as this helps clear up some Microsoft terminology.   My understanding is that sometimes one PM works with a developer and a tester.  By the way a PM doesn't program and doesn't manage.

What Program Manager in Microsoft does and what I do as PM in Microsoft

Access 2007: "This database is in an unrecognized format"

An accde or mde created in Access 2007 SP1 can't be read in Access 2007 no SP.

Error message when you try to open a compiled database file or a compiled project file in Access 2007: "This database is in an unrecognized format"

Some Microsoft Access MDB Corruption Symptoms page has been updated accordingly

Updated the Microsoft Access Email FAQ - Directly via the Winsock page

Microsoft Access Email FAQ - Directly via the Winsock to include a link to Email Sending UserControl.  VB 6.0 code which should be easily adapted to VBA.  Note that I haven't tested this.

SQL Server White Papers: Migration from ... Microsoft Access to Microsoft SQL Server

SQL Server White Papers: Migration from Oracle Sybase, or Microsoft Access to Microsoft SQL Server

Usage Analysis of the Access Developer Reference

A very interesting posting Usage Analysis of the Access Developer Reference.  Nice to see that they will be updating the help topics of the top error messages.

This is very similar in concept to Microsoft analyzing software crash reports.  They know that folks feel that pain so they really work to fix those.  So send in your crash reports.

Note that I got this from a posting on the Access Team blog.  If you're reading my blog you should also be reading their blog too.

Bad Day at the office!

Bad Day at the office! (COMPILATION VIDEO)

Yes, even though it wasn't funny at the time to the individual and others in the same office it is funny now.  Which is why I chose a humour tag.

Microsoft Access - Malicious Exploit in-the-wild

"Users should avoid unexpected MDB files found in email or offered as downloads for websites. They should also stay up-to-date on security patches and AV protection."

Microsoft Access - Malicious Exploit in-the-wild

Resetting autonumber seed to the highest used value

Executing an append query which has a value in the autonumber field can set the autonumber seed to a unwanted high value.   Or maybe you had some code running amok, or amuck if you prefer that spelling, which accidentally inserted a lot of records.

In Access 2000 and newer, or rather Jet 4.0, as well as Access 2007 and ACE, removing the unwanted records and compacting a database doesn't reset the autonumber seed back to the highest used number.     The autonumber see is only reset to 0 when you remove all the records in a table.   in Access 97, Jet 3.5, the seed was reset back to the highest used value.

(Of course you're going to have to believe me when I say I did a compact in between those two screen shots.)

Of course the purists will state that an autonumber has no real meaning and the users will never see it anyhow. Yes, they have a point but I like being neat and tidy, thank you very much.

See Fixing AutoNumbers when Access assigns negatives or duplicates for ADO code to reset the seed.  Note that this is about the only feature in ADO or ADOX that DAO doesn't have when it comes to Access databases.   There might be one or two other things but I've never needed them or they might only apply to SQL Server and other databases.

Jet 4.0 hotfix

Jet 4.0 Database Engine hotfix package - 943509 fixes a number of crashes in Microsoft Access 2002/XP and 2003 as well as other products that use Jet 4.0.  (I assume it fixes problems in Access 2000 as well but that article doesn't specifically state that.)

Note though you should carefully examine the event logs of the system(s) which are experiencing problems to ensure this hotfix is applicable to your problem.   A hotfix may introduce more problems that it will solve.

You can now request the hotfix from within the KB article by clicking on the links in the Resolution section of the KB article.

Sharing The Customer's Pain

Sharing The Customer's Pain - An excellent posting explaining why developers, and their management, should spend a day or two every year doing software phone support.   Or sit with their customers for a few hours and really, really listen.

How is Microsoft Office licensed?

How is Microsoft Office licensed? is an blog posting clarifying some details of Office licensing.