Access Viewer 2007 / 2010

[JimmyC]

My organziation still uses Office XP.

I noticed for the 2010 Office version that Access is only included in the Office Professional Suite. There are only 3 access applications at my organization in which all employees use. These databases are merely copied SQL tables from our billing system and the end user views the various "copied" tables via a swithboard in access. One nice feature is that our end user do use is once the table is displayed is that the user can click on any column heading and the table is resorted in ascending or descending order{i.e. unlike Excel, where you need to have the entire data table / grid highlighted prior to sorting}. There is also a button on the switchboard to permit the end user to e-mail a file request to our office services department.

My question is whether the functionality available through the access switchboard dicussed above is available through the access viewer? My thought would be to update the vast majority of our employees with the home and business 2010 version as the suite contains what all of our employees use...word, excel powerpoint and outlook {onenote is a thrown in for us}....but what I really need to understand is whether the access viewer will permit our end users to use the switchboard, sort the displayed tables as discussed above and click on the e-mail button...

From what I learned on the internet, the access viewer lets one "see" the tables...But I need to understand if it also permits one to "interact" with an access switchboard {i.e. pressing buttons to display different tables}, be able to sort the tables, by field in ascending / descending order and the button that permits the user to send an e-mail via Outlook or our office services department. No records are ever updated, etc. by the end user---these access applications are merely "view only" for end user informational purposes...

If this is not possible using the 2010 access viewer, is there another database application that I can copy the tables into and it will permit end users to view tables via a menu application {i.e. like the access switchboard} through a "viewer" rather than requiring the full database software to be purchased and installed on each user's desktop computer? THANKS.

[HansV]

Microsoft Access has always been part of the Professional edition (or higher) of Microsoft Office, never of the standard edition.

Users who don't have the Professional edition can download and install the free Access 2007 Download: Access Runtime or Microsoft Access 2010 Runtime. This lets them work with Access databases (but they can't modify the design of database objects).

[JimmyC]

Hans, As always, thank you for the information. JimC

[Wendell]

Note that Freelabs Software does offer a product called the Access Database Viewer which apparently doesn't require that you have Access or the Access Runtime installed. I have no experience with it, but would be a bit dubious about viewing any formats other than the .mdb and .mde versions. The Runtime as Hans suggests is a far better choice, although there are some challenges with security and the runtime versions. Note that the 2010 runtime is already available; previous versions were often delayed 6 months or more from the full product ship.