Differing Versions of MS Office

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Steve Vincent
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Differing Versions of MS Office

Post by Steve Vincent »

I know this isn't OLAP related but it does have relevance to TM1 in that we are trying to convince some areas to stop using MS Access and transfer their planning tools to a TM1 solution instead.

Company is upgrading MS Office from 2003 to 2010. This includes all the standard MS Office fayre but NOT Access or Project. As part of the attempt to woo these areas away from Access i'm trying to build a case and i see a significant issue in that running MS Office 2010 alongside Access 2003 could prove problematic. I'm not involved in any of the testing as i don't use Access (YAY!) but the info can help when discussing the points with the customer. Does anyone know if Office 2010 & Access 2003 play nice together? if there are issues, in what type of area and how severe? I'm expecting VBA and anything involving shared Office libraries to be the main problem areas.

TIA
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Re: Differing Versions of MS Office

Post by Alan Kirk »

Steve Vincent wrote:I know this isn't OLAP related but it does have relevance to TM1 in that we are trying to convince some areas to stop using MS Access and transfer their planning tools to a TM1 solution instead.

Company is upgrading MS Office from 2003 to 2010. This includes all the standard MS Office fayre but NOT Access or Project. As part of the attempt to woo these areas away from Access i'm trying to build a case and i see a significant issue in that running MS Office 2010 alongside Access 2003 could prove problematic. I'm not involved in any of the testing as i don't use Access (YAY!)
Don't be mean to Access! I used to love Access before I realised its many, many limitations and absolutely gutless performance once you get beyond a couple of thousand rows of data. Whoever named the "Jet" database engine certainly had a sense of humour. And yes, I know that it was supposed to be an acronym for Joint Engine Technology rather than a reference to the speed that it simply doesn't have with large tables. (And the gods help you if you have even a couple of joins.) But that doesn't alter the fact that when you get to a few hundred thousand rows of data, as I commonly used to before I discovered the delights of SQL Server, it was less a jet and more a Sopwith Camel with a couple of bung pistons. In this sense... I can't see how Access is a direct competitor to TM1 in two significant respects:
(a) The speed issue if a lot of data is involved; and
(b) Scalability. Because it's a file-based application the rule of thumb, I believe, is that if you have more than 20 or so users on a shared Access application you're going to have severe problems and a network that will be brought to its knees unless it's the latest and greatest fibre optic doo-hickey. Access is, quite simply, a really, REALLY bad tool for (non-trivial) distributed computing IMHO.

But on the other hand, I'd rather use a relational database for transaction-level data than TM1. (But these days SQL Server, NOT Access unless I needed to create a quick & dirty front end as well. I've even stopped bothering using Access as a front end to non-trivial SQL Server apps; if I have to put in serious time I prefer to write 'em in VB.Net.)
Steve Vincent wrote:but the info can help when discussing the points with the customer. Does anyone know if Office 2010 & Access 2003 play nice together?
It depends on your definition of "play nice". Even if both versions are used within the company you're not likely to have the two installed on the one machine. But since you raised the issue by asking about libraries...

I have every version of Office from 97 to 2007 on my Windows 7 Ultimate notebook; I haven't gotten around to purchasing 2010 yet but I don't think (AFAIK) that there are huge, earth-shaking differences between 2007 and 2010. (Why have I done this? Back in the days when I contributed to Usenet groups before MS shut its servers down in favour of some web abomination, there would sometimes be questions about things that were happening in specific versions and it was useful to be able to fire up the correct version to check it.)

Between 97 and 2003 I never had a significant problem. I could fire up any version and it would be trivial to return to my default one (at one time XP, later 2003) and even have file associations work correctly. All I had to do was follow the two basic principles; install oldest to newest and into different folders.

2007 is a completely different situation. It's like a petulant 4 year old demanding attention. Frequently when I fire it up I get it singing its happy little song: "Oh I'm waiting to install, to configure and install, oh stand by while I install, I install, I install..."

While I grit my teeth, click on [Cancel] and mutter "You're already installed you stupid piece of {****}, just run!!!"

But eventually it does, after petulantly advising me that I interrupted its important business and it may not work properly. I've never in fact found any issues with its functionality, such as it is, being disabled when it launches as a result of me cancelling though.

(Well, aside from the fact that by default it will cripple some of the functionality of the database unless you store it in a trusted location. Such crippling requires you to click on dialogs which say "ENABLE THE GORRAM CONTENT AND JUST FRAPPING DO WHAT I SODDING TELL YOU TO DO INSTEAD OF GETTING IN MY FACE AND BEING AN ONGOING SERIES OF TIME-WASTING OBSTACLES, YOU BRAIN DEAD PIECE OF ****" Or it's just possible that that's the way I'm translating those dialogs in my own mind, the actual wording may be slightly different.)

I get the "Preparing to install" dialog the next time I fire up 2003 as well, but it painlessly and quickly responds to the Cancel key, unlike 2007 which gets sulky about doing so and takes its own sweet time.

(Oh, and I just looooove that new feature where I can create new fields in a table just by typing in the grid. Boy oh boy, isn't that great for data validation and data structuring, just make it up as you go along! :roll: )

But the big issue is the file type. 2007 introduced a new file type called .accdb which is not backward compatible with 2003; unlike the situation with .docx files, for example, which can be converted in Word 2003, you can't open an .accdb in Access 2003 at all. (AFAIK .accdb is still in use in 2010.)

However 2007 can still work with the older .mdb format; I haven't had a problem with that. I've tested it with some Access applications, but not extensively. If you're going to run both versions, you will be restricted to the .mdb format.

That, however, isn't all bad because one of the biggest (IMHO) changes between .mdb and .accdb is that in the latter they dumped user level security, which was not infrequently used in developing Access applications. I don't think that too many people took it seriously as a security model for truly protecting the data; just as "Protecting" an Excel worksheet will only protect it from attack by a lettuce leaf, provided that it isn't a sharp lettuce leaf. But it was useful for limiting and regulating actions (input, update, query actions) on the database within a relatively trusted environment when you had no reason to assume that someone was going to maliciously hack it. Now, however... it's just gone. 2007 has allegedly "Enhanced" security with integration with Sharepoint Services and by crippling certain functionality (as mentioned above) by default, but I haven't tried Sharepoint integration and in any case it again comes back to the fact that you'd need to implement only the functionality that could be shared between Access 2003 and 2010.

(I like the way MS uses the word "Enhanced" as a euphemism for "We've crippled some functionality that you previously relied on because we can't be bothered putting in the effort to make it work properly". I call it the Outlook principle.)
Steve Vincent wrote:if there are issues, in what type of area and how severe? I'm expecting VBA and anything involving shared Office libraries to be the main problem areas.
I haven't found any issues with VBA in Access 2007 (doesn't mean that there aren't any) aside from 2007 having an overwhelming need to disable it by default unless you put the database in just the right place and don't look at it funny. As for the libraries... well, as I said I can run both 2003 and 2007 on the one machine and expect to be able to with 2010 as well. I find it a pain which is why I very, VERY rarely fire up any of the 2007 applications (given that I can actually find the menu commands in 2003), but I can do it and certainly I therefore don't think that there will be any issues with users with different versions on different machines being able to use Access files... as long as they're in .mdb format.
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Steve Vincent
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Re: Differing Versions of MS Office

Post by Steve Vincent »

Thanks Alan, knew i could count on you ;) I too started in the murky world of Access, it has its place but not where we are going. The people i am talking to are not tech natured, they are users & administrators rather than developers, but i can see that their path may not be an easy one. We have many, many security hurdles here and where you might be able to deal with them via trusted apps and the like i'm not sure we will be allowed that. All good info tho, will, um, clean it up to a few key points should the questions be asked. Thanks.
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Re: Differing Versions of MS Office

Post by sohal231 »

i think MS office 2007 is the best from all of the from 2003 to 2010.....
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