Tony's Microsoft Access Blog : Access 2007

Two new versions of the Auto FE Updater are available.

Tony — Sun, 15 Nov 2009 06:50:36 GMT

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.

Eagerly anticipated Access 2007 hotfix

Tony — Tue, 01 Sep 2009 00:11:59 GMT

Description of the Access 2007 hotfix package (Access-x-none.msp, Ace-x-none.msp): August 25, 2009
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;973405

Dunno what happened in the KB article title but this is a hotfix a lot of folks have been waiting for.

Image control events on continuous form - Access 2007 SP2

Tony — Sat, 02 May 2009 02:42:20 GMT

"The main window of my app is a Continuous forms form where each row
has several small graphics (filepath bound image controls) and a few
text fields. When the user clicks on one of these, several events fire
based on which ROW the user clicked on. After installing the SP2, when
the user clicks on any of the image controls, the events fire as if
the user has clicked on the Top row, no matter what row he clicked on. "

MSA Runtime SP2 screwed up my App!! Options

This one has not yet been confirmed by others or Microsoft.

Navigation Pane Description missing - Access 2007 SP2

Tony — Sat, 02 May 2009 02:33:44 GMT

"Use MS ACCESS 2007 to manage large volume of accounting data, and have many
tables and queries. I enter a description in these tables and queries to
help me remember what they all do. MS OFFICE Service Pack 2 was released
into my machine last night, and now the descriptions have disappeared in the
navigation pane I use to run queries."

Navigation Pane Descriptions -2007 Office Service Pack 2

Confirmed by multiple people and Microsoft.

Office 2007 SP2 is available for download

Tony — Wed, 29 Apr 2009 08:11:29 GMT

The 2007 Microsoft Office Suite Service Pack 2 (SP2) is available for download. (Yeah, that title doesn't make a lot of sense but hey what do I know.)

Description of 2007 Microsoft Office Suite Service Pack 2 (SP2) and of Microsoft Office Language Pack 2007 SP2 has a few big areas of improvement when it comes to Access 2007. You can download a detailed spreadsheet with all the fixes from the above page.

One interesting fix is "A user can only see the first 4,750 tables of an SQL database in the ODBC import dialog box. " Yowzer.

However the following I find particularly interesting: "Applying Microsoft Security Bulletin MS08-028 may cause a benign corruption error in multi-user databases." What is a benign corruption issue? That one puzzles me.

Access Demos, tutorials and basics

Tony — Sun, 26 Apr 2009 21:35:19 GMT

Thanks to a posting by Bill Mosca Access (2007) Demo Videos can be found at Access Demos

Also see Access Basics by Crystal fellow Access MVP. She also has some Video Tutorials

Some code to tame the Office Ribbon for Access (2007)

Tony — Sun, 26 Apr 2009 21:18:50 GMT

Albert Kallal, fellow Access MVP just announced the following:

"The office ribbon is an amazing new interface.

The problem with the ribbon is that takes a lot of code to change the ribbon at runtime.

Solution: With my ribbon class you can enable, hide, change label text, or pictures of a button with great ease and very little code.

This ribbon class allows you to use the simple "old style" syntax to enable, hide, or change the text of a button. eg:

meRib("Button1").enabled = true
meRib("Button1").label = "this is the new text for button1 on the ribbon"
meRib("Button1").picture = "HappyFace.png"

Some code to tame the Office Ribbon for Access (2007)

There may be some updates suggested by fellow MVPs so check back to that page on a regular basis.

Access Performance FAQ - local default printer instead of network

Tony — Tue, 21 Apr 2009 00:49:05 GMT

If your system is painfully slow when updating forms or reports in design view try creating a local printer and setting that as the default printer. This could be a PDF printer such as the open source PDFCreator or free CutePDF Writer. This may be more applicable to Access 2007 than previous versions. Alternatively just create a generic printer.

The above was just added the to Microsoft Access Performance FAQ page.

Access 2007 SP2

Tony — Fri, 17 Apr 2009 07:14:49 GMT

Interesting updates (among others) in Service Pack 2 for the 2007 Microsoft Office System due to ship April 28th:

- The Microsoft Save As PDF or XPS add-in has been built into Office applications in SP2. Users no longer have to download and install the add-in separately.

Hmm, so the Microsoft lawyers changed their minds on Adobe's PDF patent claims or something like that? Nah, don't get me started on the ridiculous state of software patents in the USA.

Note: I'm not picking on Microsoft or Adobe here. I think most, or 99%, of software patents are useless and despicable. Only the frigging lawyers win. Copyright is fine though.

Microsoft Office Access 2007 Developer Edition FAQ Update

Tony — Sun, 25 Jan 2009 06:14:04 GMT

Updated the below section to show how Access 2007 is smarter than I initially though.

Q: How do I set the trusted locations using the runtime?

<snip>

Access 2007 will go through all the registry entries under the Trusted Locations key. So you can call your trusted location as you desire so long as it doesn't conflict with another applications key. You may want to use your company name and app name or a GUID.

For example
HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Office\12.0\Access\Security\Trusted Locations\Company Name App Name

I'm planning on adding this functionality to the Auto FE Updater. Soon I hope. As well as the Jet 4.0 Sandbox and Access 2003 Macro security settings.

A new hot fix for Access 2007 is now available

Tony — Wed, 31 Dec 2008 22:39:00 GMT

A new hot fix for Access 2007 is now available

But I shouldn't have needed to tell you this on my blog because you already read this on the official Microsoft Access blog, right?

Updates for Microsoft Office Access 2007 Help

Tony — Thu, 13 Nov 2008 07:38:05 GMT

Click on Updates for Microsoft Office Access 2007 Help to download. Many if not all the other Office 2007 products update for help is also available.

Looks like most of these are also available via Microsoft Update. Oddly enough not the Access Update. <shrug>

An update on Rick Fisher's Find & Replace utility

Tony — Thu, 13 Nov 2008 05:31:46 GMT

I posted a blog entry on Rick Fisher's Find & Replace tool that stated I couldn't see any mention of Access 2003, in which his utility works very nicely, and Access 2007 support. Turns out the beta copy of his tool does indeed have support for Access 2007. I just couldn't see it but then I didn't go looking very hard either. I've gently told him via email that he should update his website a bit.

Now what is interesting is that Microsoft has removed the ability to programmatically update macros in Access 2007. This puzzles me especially given that the product group has significantly enhanced macros. The Access team has gone to great lengths to ensure that macros can't do anything malicious such as deleting files so I don't quite see why.

Disclaimer. I purchased a license for Rick Fisher's Find & Replace tool likely about a decade ago. I have no financial interest in blogging about his tool

Access 2007 and ACE 12 hotfix

Tony — Wed, 29 Oct 2008 06:44:18 GMT

Description of the Access 2007 hotfix package (Access.msp): October 28, 2008 mentions some performance problems when creating an RTF document and using some controls bound to linked tables. Given that 99% of Access form are using controls bound to a linked table this hotfix could be quite useful.

Also a somewhat obscure problem in ACE from my unilingual perspective however to our multilingual friends this could be important. Description of the Access 2007 hotfix package (Ace.msp): October 28, 2008

Note that if you don't need to use a hotfix then Microsoft suggests you don't install it.

(It would appear that unilingual isn't a word according to Windows Live Writer. Oh well. Not that Google is always correct but there are 96,000 hits for that word. And you don't want to know the second word which was suggested by Windows Live Writer in place of unilingual.)

Access 2007 and Outlook hotfix

Tony — Wed, 15 Oct 2008 00:58:44 GMT

"In Access 2007, you create a linked table to the Contacts folder in Microsoft Office Outlook 2007. Then, you add a contact in the linked table in Access 2007. When you double-click the contact in Outlook 2007, a new blank e-mail appears. However, you expect that a contact card that displays the contact information appears."

Description of the Access 2007 hotfix package (Ace.msp): August 26, 2008.

This hotfix actually updates ACE and not Access.

Adding Programs to Access 2007 Deployment Packages

Tony — Sun, 01 Jun 2008 20:49:30 GMT

Adding Programs to Access 2007 Deployment Packages is a video using PDF & XPS Addin Setup as the example. This demo gets right down into the setup.ini file.

Mike Stowe did a fine job of smoothly saying PDF & XPS Addin Setup quite a number of times. I'm sure I would've stumbled a few times on that one.

KB article 950812: Compact and repair might delete your database (Access 2007)

Tony — Fri, 30 May 2008 00:41:40 GMT

If you're reading my blog then you should also be subscribed to the MS Access team blog. Nevertheless this is an important notice for Access 2007 foilks so here you go. KB article 950812: Compact and repair might delete your database (Access 2007).

There have been isolated reports in the newsgroups of vanishing databases after doing a compact and repair in Access 2007.

I've been off to two funerals and visiting family in Manitoba these last few weeks thus nothing new on my blog. Besides I was on dialup. RIP Alice Toews and Jan Bron.

Another very useful Access 2007 blog

Tony — Tue, 15 Apr 2008 01:28:55 GMT

Help and How-to for Microsoft Office Access 2007 This blog has some useful and interesting tidbits even for an experienced person.

Also see Help and How-to for Microsoft Office Access 2003

You may have to right click and copy the link location and paste into your RSS reader. Or visit RSS Feeds on Microsoft Office Online

Description of the Access 2007 hotfix update: March 31, 2008

Tony — Thu, 10 Apr 2008 19:07:01 GMT

Description of the Access 2007 hotfix update: March 31, 2008

"You cannot save customized printer settings in the Page Setup dialog box in Access 2007."

This hotfix can be requested online so you do not need to phone anywhere.

Access 2007 runtime update

Tony — Sat, 29 Mar 2008 02:33:31 GMT

Access 2007 Download: Access Runtime Note the updated date and the version 2.

Also note that this runtime contains the very important updates which were contained in Office 2007 SP1. "This version of the Access 2007 Runtime contains files whose versions are slightly higher than the level of the same files that are updated by Office 2007 Service Pack 1 (SP1)."