Thanks to Gary DeWitt's superb presentation at Whilfest I have become convinced that in a good path for the future is to design my apps for MSDE/SQL Server backends. Using VFE this is really quite easy - at least when I am using an ODBC connection to the SQL 7.0 database on my development machine. I have created a simple one table app which uses GUIDs for the PK and works very nicely.
The question is : It seems my database is the file MYDATA.MDF in C:\MSSQL7\DATA. I assume the table is contained inside ( hard to get used to that ).
I want to run the setup wizard and create a stand-alone app on another machine, using MSDE (whatever that is)
I have another machine here on my network (both it and my dev machine run Win98. They are networked together. I create the install files with the setup wizard and taking its advice, I distribute mdac_typ.exe with my app.
I install my app on the other machine and it works < g > fine until I try to open the table by instantiating the first form class.
I included my data folder with the app, but the data folder only had the DBC for the remote view. I assume I need to distribute the MDF but what of the LOG file? If I want to distribute the actualy DBC with the table, how does it path and won't the connection in my view DBC be confused? Do I need to setup an ODBC connection on the client (tried to use named pipes, but that points it back to my dev as server and trying \\.\mssql7\data\mydata.mdf or mydata_data.mdf didn't seem to do the trick) And will Stonefield do its magic tricks with this I've come to depend on dealing with DBCs and DBFs?
The next thing I'm going to try is copying the MDF to the client, creating an ODBC connection to that with the same name the views DBC expects to see and seeing if it likes that.
I'm still trying to get used to how a SQL database seems so totally owned by the SQL server that creates it, and how unportable it seems compared to DBCs and DBFs.
Perhaps someone who has been through this will understand what I am trying to ask. I want to create a VERY simple step by step example of using MSDE data for desktop apps which can then be easily upsized to a SQL back end.
As always, guidance appreciated.
Happy Holidays !
Charles Hankey
Though a good deal is too strange to be believed, nothing is too strange to have happened.
- Thomas Hardy
Half the harm that is done in this world is due to people who want to feel important. They don't mean to do harm-- but the harm does not interest them. Or they do not see it, or they justify it because they are absorbed in the endless struggle to think well of themselves.
-- T. S. Eliot
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Liberty is a well-armed sheep contesting the vote.
- Ben Franklin
Pardon him, Theodotus. He is a barbarian, and thinks that the customs of his tribe and island are the laws of nature.
