If you qualify, it is a great way to keep all your test machines up to date as far as software goes. The deal is that you are supposed to use the software for development only.
Subsequent years the price drops to $199. It also includes a bunch of server software including SQL Server. It includes 10 licenses for Office Pro, plus 10 licenses for Win XP and various other products such as VISIO, PROJECT, OneNote, etc. If you are a developer, you might consider purchasing the Action Pack.
The product I purchased was the $499 package since I have no need for a full Visual Studio installation. mdw and any other necessary files and packages them with the Access "runtime" (if necessary) and creates a self - extracting executable that runs the Microsoft Installer to install your application and MS Access as a runtime version on the client PC. The package and deployment wizard takes your. You cannot get to the design view with it so you cannot create or modify any database objects. The difference is that when it is installed as the "runtime" version, it will only open existing Access applications.
This is the actual Microsoft Access product. The runtime that everyone talks about is actually MSAccess.exe. There is no runtime version of your application. What if the computer that I'm installing my runtime version db onto does not have access installed, not any versions? Will this this runtime version db install and run correctly? You mentioned to legally install my runtime db version: You would need to buy the developers edition for Office 97 to be able to legally install the runtime version of Access onto a computer that does not have the version of Access that your db is designed in. Along with the Visual Studio 2005 Tools for the Microsoft Office System, I hope this version works. I think my best strategy would be to re-write the db in access 2003, which I don't have however I do have access 2000, Do you think access 2000 would be ok, If not I'll have to purchase access 2003.
You mentioned I will need to have decent error trapping for all functions and subs for a runtime db, I'm not sure what that means, or how to accomplish that?
This would be a lot less expensive route, compared to the Visual Studio 2005 Professional with MSDN Premium Subscription. It appears that the Visual Studio 2005 Tools for the Microsoft Office System has the Access developer extensions section clicked.