>>>>Hi,
>>>>
>>>>So the customers would access their data directly on the accountants server? No local data copy?
>>>>Regards,
>>>>Viv
>>>__
>>>
>>>I'm a customer and I have my local mdf file which I access with the native drivers
>>
>>As already stated you will need SQLServer installed to do that. The native client is used to access the server. IAC, if you are using .NET you should use the build-in SQL dataprovider not native client.
>>
>
>Ok, thanks, I'll check that out - may have mixed terminology
>
>What I meant :
>
>Accountant uses sql server 'service'
>Customer accesses the database directly through 'a driver that works directly on the file'

I'd look at CE for the customer side . It has quite a few limitations but, if they don't require multi-user access, it could be usable - and there's far less installation/configuration hassle involved.

>IAC, cut me some slack, my investigation has only begun

We've been dithering on a similar decision for over a year! Maybe only 15% of the sites need mutiuser access but that means they need (at least) the SQL Express edition so the installation procedure will have to provide for that. We just haven't decided whether it's worth supporting an alternative CE version for the remaining 85%.....

Of course there are probably non-MS solutions worth looking at as wll......

Regards,
Viv