Chapter 25. DEVELOPING SQL SERVER PROJECTS USING ADPS
IN THIS CHAPTER
In past versions of Access, you could link data to your application from SQL Server or other server-based databases by using ODBC. When table links to a server were created, the server's data was available to your Access application, but the server's structure was not. The structure of the server database and the capability to manipulate it weren't previously available in the Access development environment.
Access 2000 changes this model. Although you can still create Jet-based applications that include server table links, you can also create a new type of application—an Access Project. A Project doesn't bind to a Jet database or rely on table links at all. It links instead to a SQL Server database exclusively. More important, a Project binds to the server database through a new technology known as OLE DB, which exposes the design of the server's database objects (tables and so forth) to the Access development environment.
This chapter examines the primary features and uses of an Access Project that links an Access application to a SQL Server database.
Note
The Access documentation differentiates between a new Access Project and a traditional Jet-based application by calling an application with Jet tables an Access database. In practice, this terminology can be confusing because an Access application has a database whether it uses Jet tables or SQL Server tables. This chapter uses the term Jet-based application to define an application that uses the traditional Access-to-Jet architecture (an .mdb file).