Expert Access™ 2007 Programming

Chapter 14. Deployment

You've written your application, tested it, and it's time to get it out to your users. If the application you're deploying is within an organization, this might be as simple as copying it to a network share. Off-the-shelf applications, however, may have additional requirements. For example, do you take steps to try and prevent piracy? Do you require a registration process or provide a limited-use application?

Regardless of how your application is distributed, you may still have additional runtime requirements such as an external database server. Issues such as these are problems to solve as part of deployment because that's when problems may occur.

This chapter covers the following:

• Creating a build process for Access-based applications

• Ensuring that application dependencies are taken care of

• Updating an application

• Licensing and registration

Creating an Automated Build

When we talk about creating a build, we typically think of languages such as Visual Basic .NET, C#, or C++ that produce compiled code. In Access 2007, the equivalent of this, of course, is the ACCDE file. In addition to creating compiled code, development environments that use these languages do some other things as well, such as stamping a binary with the build number.

For an Access application, you might choose to stamp it with a build number to indicate the build of the database being distributed. The build number can also be used to help track when it was created. In addition to a build number, ...