do you need Access installed on a pc to be able to read/write to a database?

[meridian2000]

Hi everyone,
Do you need access installed on a pc to be able to read/write to a database from vb ? I've been asked by a friend to write a program that needs to use a databse to hold data. I've written a few simular programs in the past for myself but I've always had Office 2007 installed with Access. My friend however doesn't use Office products so no Access. Also he's told me the same program will possibly be installed on more than 1 pc of which one will have a 64 bit Windows 7 operating system and the other a 32 bit Windows. Would that make a difference as well.

I'm writing the program on a 32 bit Windows pc using VB.Net (2007)

 

[jmcilhinney]

You don't need Access installed to connect to a database. Firstly, there are numerous options available for the database itself. Access is only one option and many would say a poor one. You can also use SQL Server CE or SQL Server Express, support for both of which is built into VS. .NET also supports any OLE DB or ODBC data source, so as long as you have the right provider or driver then you can connect to any data source in code. There are also numerous third-party ADO.NET providers for specific data sources, e.g. Oracle, MySQL and SQLite.

If you do want to use an Access database then you can either use the old MDB format or the newer (Access 2007 and later) ACCDB format. If you use MDB then you can use the Jet OLE DB provider to connect and that is basically part of Windows these days. If you use the ACCDB format then you will need to install the ACE provider. This gets installed with Office 2007 or later but is also available as a separate, free download.

From 2010, Office has been available in both 32-bit and 64-bit versions. Obviously the 64-bit version will only run on 64-bit Windows but the 32-bit version will run on both 32-bit and 64-bit Windows. Microsoft recommends that you use the 32-bit version unless you have specific need of any of the small number of features only the 64-bit version provides, e.g. effectively unlimited-size Excel spreadsheets. That's because of the huge number of existing 32-bit add-ons for Office that already exist. That means that you should build your application as a 32-bit application specifically. If you don't, it will look for a 64-bit OLE DB provider on 64-bit systems and fail in most cases.

 

[meridian2000]

Many thanks jmcilhinney, I'm going to investigate all the suggestions you've made and see which works out best, I'm thinking that using MS Access might not be a good way to move forward. Thanks again