[AccessD] Access 2007 Applications Running Under Access 2013Runtime

Gustav and Jim,

I definitely hear you both on the subject of massive out-rolls. Not a
pleasant experience,even with a few dozen computers,letalone a few hundred.
I have the pleasure, in my semi-retirement, of having only two boxes to
worry about. One runs Win 8.1 and the other is a dual-boot Win7 + Ubuntu
14.xxx. Over time and much experimentation, I have finally managed to get
all the USB peripherals to be visible from both boxes. Only the laptop is
USB 3 capable so that's where everything is plugged into.I got this
hub-thing that lets me connect four USB devices into a single port, and
thence share all these peripherals. So the USB-Blu-ray burner is visible to
both boxes and that lets me back up important stuff from either box,
regardless of OS. It was difficult to set up, and I can only imagine the
complexities of doing the same with 100 boxes.

I have really grown to love Win 8.1:faster boot, less energy and skip the
tiled UI, which is relatively easy. The only time I see tiles is the result
of an accidental keystroke, but hitting the Escape key gets me back to
where I was. I think that Win 8.1 is a great OS, and once you figure out
how to bypass the tiles then it's way better than Win 7.

But I understand why an SMB might want not to go there. Win 7 is pretty
nice, and although now depracated, it still works just fine. I'd hate to be
the one who has to migrate a large number of XP boxes to Win7 or Win8.1.
One of the many joys of being semi-retired. As in the memorable line from
The Godfather, "I keep tryiing to get out, but they keep dragging me back
in." It seems that once you've committed yourself, there's no easy path
out. Clients whom you haven't heard from in a year or two suddenly
re-emerge, and you built their systems so who else are they going to turn
to?, for which they

The up-side is that occasionally a few bucks travel my way. The down-side
is that I'd rather devote my time to learning to improve my chess game
(speaking of which, I am currently reading Vukovic and Nimsowitsch. both
tough slogs but worth the effort).

And I thought that retirement was going to be easy! LOL It doesn't work
like that. Currently I'm at work on an eBook about Alpha Anywhere, and a
coupe of projects to take Access apps I wrote to the new world of
web/mobile and disconnected scenarios. The avenues are highly specialized
(for example, safety-engineering, whose total market is perhaps one or two
per state in the US: not a large potential market. Story of my life, I go
where the needs go, and damn the torpedoes.

Currently I'm at work on two apps, both in Alpha Anywhere, because the core
requirements are web/mobile deployment + disconnected capability. One of
these (Volumteer Manager) wil be donated free to any organization which
uses a body of volunteers; the other one (Campaiign Manager) I might sell
to a relatively small number of clients, maybe 1000 in the Canadian market,
counting federal, provincial and city levels; after that I will look at the
markets in the USA and Europe.

What drives both of these apps is the need for disconnected use: the user
is assumed to be disconnected from the central database and then synchrize
upon re-connection.Alpha handles this aspect splendidly. All other
alternatives look lame in this respect.

A.


On Sun, Jan 11, 2015 at 6:54 AM, Gustav Brock <gustav at cactus.dk> wrote:

> Hi Jim
>
> Personally, I have the same experience as Arthur. I try to force Win8.1 on
> everything I can get access to because it is so much better. Alone the
> reduced boot time makes people feel they've got a new machine, not to
> mention the wake-up time which is a couple of seconds only even on machines
> hooked up to Active Drectory.
> Windows Update is another wast improvement. In earlier versions it bothers
> you regurlarly and bugs the machine if it hasn't been in use for a while;
> in Windows 8 it runs nearly silent, updates much faster, and steps back
> when you work.
>
> What you describe is comparable to FUD. People are told from so many
> sources, that Windows 8 is scary, so they of course refrain and install an
> OS from 2009.
> Recently, I had an interesting experience. A friend running Windows 8 at
> home was given the choice between Win7 and Win8 for his new office machine.
> He chose Win7 because it was "probably the safest" - who looks for trouble
> at work?
> Now he regrets. Among other things, he misses the large start screen where
> he nicely has organized his tiles/shortcuts.
>
> The reasons why large corporations are behind is traditional. It just
> takes time to get everything tested and approved. That's why you have
> extended support for Windows 7 after the 15th of this month. I recall when
> Windows XP was out and we started offering it to clients, Novo Nordic - a
> Microsoft reference customer who lacked neither knowledge, resources, nor
> money - was just about to roll out Windows 2000.
>
> /gustav