MS Access – Deploying Your Database Front-End to Your Users

We all know that the proper way to setup any multiple-user MS Access database is to:

Split the database (Back-End – Tables; Front-End – Queries, Forms, Reports, Macros, VBA, …)
Place the Back-End on the a server to which all the users have access to
Deploy a copy of the Front-End to each user so they have their own local copy to run the database from.

With this in mind, a very common question in a variety of forums then becomes, how do we deploy a copy of the Front-End to our users and ensure that they always get any updates?

There are a number of possible approaches. such as:

bat/vbs script to blindly copy the master Front-End file to the local computer and then launches the database
vbs script which checks the current version installed and perform an update if/when required and then launches the database
html script which performs any updates and then launches the database
Integrating a version check within your database, or creating an intermediary database to perform updates and launch your database
use specialized software to launch the database which takes care of this

Below are a few good resources that illustrates each of these:

3 responses on “MS Access – Deploying Your Database Front-End to Your Users”

daniel assedo May 5, 2017 at 5:10 pm

hello
take a look here:

https://www.developpez.net/forums/d819292/logiciels/microsoft-office/access/contribuez/mise-jour-automatisee-d-frontal-alternative-n-2-a/

very simple to update FE
à bientôt

Gilad November 2, 2019 at 7:02 am

Hi, Thanks for all of your efforts with this great site.
Do you know of a way of updating Front End applications via the Web?

Daniel Pineault Post authorNovember 2, 2019 at 10:49 am

Sure. There are different solutions, but I’d probably use Stuart McCall’s FTP class which can be found at https://bytes.com/topic/access/answers/434183-capturing-ftp-responses-vba (Wayne Gillespie’s reply).

If all you want to do is download a file, and nothing more, then you could use the following (originally taken from a reply from Doug Steele), I’ve simply added x64 declarations (untested though) and error handling:

'x64 declaration
'Declare PtrSafe Function URLDownloadToFile Lib "urlmon" _
'        Alias "URLDownloadToFileA" ( _
'        ByVal pCaller As Long, _
'        ByVal szURL As String, _
'        ByVal szFileName As String, _
'        ByVal dwReserved As Long, _
'        ByVal lpfnCB As Long) As Long
'x32 declaration
Declare Function URLDownloadToFile Lib "urlmon" _
                                   Alias "URLDownloadToFileA" ( _
                                   ByVal pCaller As Long, _
                                   ByVal szURL As String, _
                                   ByVal szFileName As String, _
                                   ByVal dwReserved As Long, _
                                   ByVal lpfnCB As Long _
                                   ) As Long

Public Function DownloadFile( _
        URL As String, _
        LocalFilename As String _
        ) As Boolean
    Dim lngRetVal             As Long

    On Error GoTo Error_Handler

    lngRetVal = _
    URLDownloadToFile(0, URL, LocalFilename, 0, 0)
    DownloadFile = (lngRetVal = 0)

Error_Handler_Exit:
    On Error Resume Next
    Exit Function

Error_Handler:
    MsgBox "The following error has occurred" & vbCrLf & vbCrLf & _
           "Error Number: " & Err.Number & vbCrLf & _
           "Error Source: DownloadFile" & vbCrLf & _
           "Error Description: " & Err.Description & _
           Switch(Erl = 0, "", Erl <> 0, vbCrLf & "Line No: " & Erl) _
           , vbOKOnly + vbCritical, "An Error has Occurred!"
    Resume Error_Handler_Exit
End Function

The you’d use it like

Call DownloadFile("http://www.domain.com/files/yourfile.txt", "C:\Folder\yourfile.txt")

BAT/VBS/HTML Approach

Database Approach

Specialized Software (Paid)

3 responses on “MS Access – Deploying Your Database Front-End to Your Users”