Tony's Microsoft Access Blog : Hard core

Jackcess is a pure Java library for reading from and writing to MS Access databases.

Tony — Sat, 24 Oct 2009 21:51:45 GMT

I just came across this interesting Open Source project - Jackcess is a pure Java library for reading from and writing to MS Access databases. Also read the FAQ. Also note the link to MDB Tools which hasn’t been updated since 2004.

Jet Engine History

Tony — Sat, 24 Oct 2009 21:01:48 GMT

A question started a bit of digging and poking about. I’ve always been interested in the history of Access and Jet and the code names used way back when such as Cirrus. The Wiki Microsoft Jet Database Engine article had a footnote referencing a page titled Jet Engine: History

Regretfully all the links mentioned on that page no longer work. Although some of the MS white papers mentioned might still be available by digging.

Which reminds me. There are two versions of the Microsoft Jet Database Engine Programmer's Guide. I have the first edition which is the one with the light blue cloud cover which was sort of the theme of Windows 95. I should purchase the second edition which has a white cover just to ensure it’s part of my collection.

And I should spend a few minutes rereading the table of contents just to refresh my memory so if I ever need some information I’ll at least know that it’s available.

Internals viewer for SQL Server

Tony — Fri, 02 Jan 2009 02:32:57 GMT

Internals viewer for SQL Server I always enjoy peeking under the covers. Hey, computer software covers. Get your mind out of the gutter. This blog posting mentions how to poke about under the covers of SQL Server.

Similar to MDB Tools - A set of libraries and utilities for reading Microsoft Access database (MDB) files.

Download the file and open the HACKING file.

Back to the basics - don't forget to run a memory diagnostic program

Tony — Sun, 24 Aug 2008 23:49:50 GMT

A friend was having very weird problems with his PC. Virus scans would halt on random files. The system would slow down or stop at random intervals. It would occasionally reboot with bizarre BSOD's (Blue Screens of Death.) I had no idea what the problem could be.

I decided to run the Memtest86 comprehensive, stand-alone memory diagnostic program. After about an hour of running it came across some severe errors. From what I could decipher it looked like a half Mb of RAM was bad. Memtest86 identified the first RAM card as being bad.

I suggested he swap RAM chips just to double check that that was the problem. Turns out that fixed the problem. He now states that the PC is running better than it ever has. And that it was slightly flaky right from brand new.

Note that you need to figure out how to burn an ISO image to your CDR/DVDR drive. And you will need to set up your BIOS or temporary bootup settings to boot from your CDR/DVDR drive.

MS08-041 : The Microsoft Access Snapshot Viewer ActiveX control

Tony — Fri, 15 Aug 2008 04:46:18 GMT

MS08-041 fixes a vulnerability in the Microsoft Access Snapshot Viewer ActiveX control. It’s an interesting vulnerability so we wanted to go into more detail about platforms at reduced risk and also more about the servicing strategy for this vulnerability.

MS08-041 : The Microsoft Access Snapshot Viewer ActiveX control

Add two items to your computer tool kit

Tony — Wed, 25 Jun 2008 03:04:10 GMT

Add two items to your computer tool kit Indeed there are some low priority files I want to get off my old laptop hard drive. It's been sitting in the freezer for a few months now so it should be cold soaked. <smile> Good idea about the blue gel packs.

Access / DotNet hybrid: yes it's possible

Tony — Thu, 18 Oct 2007 23:40:10 GMT

Tom van Stiphout starting a very interesting posting on Access and .Net interoperability. Access / DotNet hybrid: yes it's possible Options

I mention this more as an intellectual curiosity as I think Access does a fine job. And can easily work at the enterprise level once you use SQL Server, or equivalent, for the data storage. Other tools can take two to five times as long to develop the same app.

So what are the undocumented SysCmd items?

Tony — Sun, 19 Aug 2007 22:39:01 GMT

In my previous posting I linked to Undocumented SysCmd Functions. So I was curious and created my own code to go through the various SysCmds. I came up with the following code.

Sub FindSysCmds()

Dim ReturnCode As Variant, i As Long
On Error GoTo tagError

' 1 through 13 are document in A2003
For i = 14 To 1024
    ' The following caused A2003 to crash
    If i = 602 Or i = 605 Or i = 606 Then _
        GoTo tagNextLoop
    ReturnCode = SysCmd(i)
    Debug.Print i & " " & ReturnCode
tagResume:
    If i > 605 Then
'        Stop
'        If i Mod 10 = 0 Then _
'            MsgBox i
    End If
tagNextLoop:
Next i
Exit Sub

tagError:
    Select Case Err.Number
    Case 2439 ' The expression you entered has a function containing the wrong numb
        Debug.Print i & " - wrong number of arguments."
        Resume tagResume
    Case 7952 ' You made an illegal function call.
        Resume tagResume
    Case Else
        Stop
    End Select
    Resume Next
End Sub

This code returned the following items.

14 - wrong number of arguments.
555
603 - wrong number of arguments.
604 - wrong number of arguments.
607 252
609 5912
610 - wrong number of arguments.
611 - wrong number of arguments.
612 - wrong number of arguments.
701 - wrong number of arguments.
710 0
711 67699721
713 - wrong number of arguments.
714 True
715 6566

Most of those are on Wayne's list. A few aren't such as 14 and 713. And his list hasn't been updated as a few on his list appear to not work in Access 2003.

Now I'm sure the folks at Microsoft are going to see the crash reports regarding codes 602, 605 and 606. And I suspect a few on the Access team follow my blog. So it'll be interesting to see if I get any comments.

Anyhow I don't have the time today to continue this research on what syscmd(14) does or which crash or don't crash in other versions of Access.