My latest YouTube video series is about getting started with C# programming. Most of my previous video work has centered around Microsoft Access but I’ve produced a couple of other C# videos and, based on the reaction, I decided it was time to do some more with it. I learned how to program many years…
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Recovering a Corrupted Table in Access With VBA
Recently, a client started experiencing errors, seemingly at random, in the database application I managed for them. The errors immediately started mentioning corruption and then these came through … Error 3167 – Record is Deleted Getting everyone out of the system and running a Compact / Repair seemed to help, but then … “The Microsoft…
How to Shut Down Remote Instances of Microsoft Access
When you’re managing a multi-user Microsoft Access application, there are times when you need all users out of the database so that you can make changes to table structures and other items. Asking everyone to shut down is unreliable and using the Windows Task Manager to forcibly shut down instances of Microsoft Access is risky…
Troubleshooting MS-Access Error 31532 – Unable to export data.
Microsoft Access can sometimes seem to have its own obstinate personality, throwing errors that persist no matter what you try. I wanted to share a recent troubleshooting experience to show some of the steps that you can take when a function is just not working as expected and the decision process involved in fixing it.
Deploying MS-Access Table Design Changes to Remote Files
A New Challenge for Access I designed a Microsoft Access database for one of my clients and it’s split into two files – a front-end file with all the forms, reports and code and a back-end file with the tables. That’s pretty standard. During the development process, I needed to make adjustments to the table…
How to Programmatically Relink Tables in Microsoft Access / VBA
Several years ago, I designed a Microsoft Access application called JobSearch Plus for managing job leads during an employment search. It was a split application, meaning that the tables were stored in one Access file, the back-end, and everything else was in the front-end file with table links to the other one. JobSearch Plus was…
How To Create a Dynamic Search Filter on a Microsoft Access Form
Best practice when retrieving data in Microsoft Access or any database, for that matter, is to limit the amount of data that you pull at any one time. This means using the proper filters and limiting the number of fields retrieved. Often, you still end up with a lot of information to look through anyway.…
How to Dynamically Set the Report RecordSource in Microsoft Access
One of the steps for creating a report in Microsoft Access is to define where the data is coming from. This is done through the report’s Record Source property which can be a table or standalone query in the database or a SQL statement as shown in the screenshot below. Usually, this is defined when the…
Coming in 2019 – CodeScholar Software Development Training!
A simple Google search turns up hundreds of options for learning programming, many free, but where do you start? There are many excellent reference sites and YouTube channels out there but many focus on the mechanics of a single language without explaining the broader concepts and best practices. Many are written by developers for (aspiring) developers and might leave…
Custom User Controls and Events in C#
One of the interesting features of C# is the ability to add custom user controls to your forms. If you have some specific functionality centered around a group of form controls that you use repeatedly, you can save it as a custom control in a class library and then add it to other applications. This…