Does Access 2003 work on Wine?

[Todd And Margo Chester]

Hi All,

I am trying to convert a customer over to Linux workstation,
instead of upgrading to Windows 7.

One last program to go. I can not get Access 2003 to work
with CentOS 5.4's Wine 1.0.1. I am set to upgrade his test
workstation to Fedora 12 and the latest Wine in a month
or so. (Access 2003 crashed when you try to open a database.)

Does anyone know if Access 2003 works in the latest Wine?

Many thanks,
-T

[DaVince]

Wine is over a year old, it is recommended you install the latest Wine instead (currently 1.1.42). This might mean (depending on your distro) that you have to compile Wine from source.

[DaVince]

Sorry, I meant to say 1.0.1 is over a year old.

[vitamin]

Does anyone know if Access 2003 works in the latest Wine?

According to AppDB http://appdb.winehq.org/objectManager.p ... n&iId=9717 - no it does not work on Wine.

[Todd And Margo Chester]

On 04/17/2010 05:13 AM, DaVince wrote:

Wine is over a year old, it is recommended you install the latest Wine instead (currently 1.1.42). This might mean (depending on your distro) that you have to compile Wine from source.

I kind of sort of already knew that. I did not feel like gong through
all the effort of upgradig just to find it did not work. That is why I
asked others it they knew.

[Todd And Margo Chester]

On 04/17/2010 09:00 AM, vitamin wrote:

Todd And Margo Chester wrote:

Does anyone know if Access 2003 works in the latest Wine?

According to AppDB http://appdb.winehq.org/objectManager.p ... n&iId=9717 - no it does not work on Wine.

Ah poo! That was the last program I had to get working before
I could migrate to Linux. Looks like I am stuck with Windows
for this client.

Unless I find something better that runs on Linux. Hmmm.
Anyone have any ideas?

Many thanks,
-T

[vitamin]

Ah poo! That was the last program I had to get working before I could migrate to Linux. Looks like I am stuck with Windows for this client.

Honestly, I haven't seen a single ms access program worth keeping. Converting it to something cross-platform would be much better solution then running access on Wine.

[Todd And Margo Chester]

On 04/18/2010 09:12 AM, vitamin wrote:

Todd And Margo Chester wrote:

Ah poo! That was the last program I had to get working before I could migrate to Linux. Looks like I am stuck with Windows for this client.

Honestly, I haven't seen a single ms access program worth keeping. Converting it to something cross-platform would be much better solution then running access on Wine.

You are correct. This is potentially 60 computes. The retraining is
the issue. Plus, low quality programs like the Bug Riddled Open Office
(BROO), where they never fix any bugs (I have a couple of seven year
old bugs out there), tend to drive the users crazy. I converted a five
user network over to BROO about four years ago and the two secretaries
about scratched my eyes out (the bugs, the bugs, the bugs).

If I were to substitute, I would need a sub for Word, Excel, Access.
And, since they eMail their customers constantly with Excel and
Word attachments, it would have to seamlessly integrate with
both Word and Excel. BROO is out -- don't want my eyes scratched out.

So, basically, I am stuck with M$

-T

[James McKenzie]

Todd And Margo Chester wrote:

On 04/18/2010 09:12 AM, vitamin wrote:

Todd And Margo Chester wrote:

Ah poo! That was the last program I had to get working before I
could migrate to Linux. Looks like I am stuck with Windows for this
client.

Honestly, I haven't seen a single ms access program worth keeping.
Converting it to something cross-platform would be much better
solution then running access on Wine.

You are correct. This is potentially 60 computes. The retraining is
the issue. Plus, low quality programs like the Bug Riddled Open Office
(BROO), where they never fix any bugs (I have a couple of seven year
old bugs out there), tend to drive the users crazy. I converted a five
user network over to BROO about four years ago and the two secretaries
about scratched my eyes out (the bugs, the bugs, the bugs).

All software has and will continue to have 'bugs'. Software is NOT
perfect. Access has them and it also has some serious shortcomings.
However, if it works for you. And yes the bugs do get fixed in
OpenOffice.org, Wine and any other FOSS project BASED UPON THE SKILLS OF
THE DEVELOPERS, not the priority YOU think they should get fixed in.
Sorry, but when you get something for 'free' you have the right to keep
the broken pieces as well. Also, there is something called patent law.
No FOSS project wants to run afoul of it. Microsoft is one of those
companies that is very good at persuing patent violators and punishing
them. Since we are trying to emulate the Windows32 and Windows64 APIs
we have to be very careful where we tread.

BTW, if you looked at Wine's bugzilla you would find bugs that have
existed since Bugzilla was started with this project. That does not
mean that they will not be fixed, but some of them have had fixes
rejected, time and time again. The same is true for any software project.

If I were to substitute, I would need a sub for Word, Excel, Access.
And, since they eMail their customers constantly with Excel and
Word attachments, it would have to seamlessly integrate with
both Word and Excel. BROO is out -- don't want my eyes scratched out.

Hmmm. Let's see. The only problem I ever encountered with
OpenOffice.org was the fact that Thunderbird was broken. The folks at
Mozilla.org know this and they are not going to fix it either...

So, basically, I am stuck with M$

Yes you are if you insist on using Access. However, if you were willing
to move to a 'real' database, or an operational front end to MS SQL, you
could move to a number of programs that are native to Linux and/or MacOSX...

However, you did state you are 'stuck' with Access.

James McKenzie

[Todd And Margo Chester]

On 04/18/2010 07:42 PM, James McKenzie wrote:

Hmmm. Let's see. The only problem I ever encountered with
OpenOffice.org was the fact that Thunderbird was broken.

Sounds like you have never tried using tables in BROO Writer. You can
not see
spaces at the end of you line. You can not copy and paste tables and retain
formatting. On and on and on. Tables are an unholy mess. Oh and try
printing
an envelope. I am glad you have not had problems. Stay the h-- away
from tables
if you do not want to go insane. In my experience, BROO only fixes
bugs when
they block some new feature bloat they want to add.

Have you any Access replacement suggestions?

-T

[dimesio]

If you really need Access, try Crossover. They have hacks to make it work; not perfectly, but it might good enough for your purposes.

As for Open Office, have you tried the Go-oo build? It includes a lot of things not in plain OO. http://go-oo.org/

[Todd And Margo Chester]

On 04/19/2010 04:32 AM, dimesio wrote:

If you really need Access, try Crossover. They have hacks to make it work; not perfectly, but it might good enough for your purposes.

Hi Dimesio,

I would like to eventually get away from Access. But i the mean time, I
will have a look
at Crossover. Thank you!

As for Open Office, have you tried the Go-oo build? It includes a lot of things not in plain OO. http://go-oo.org/

Never heard of it. I will definately take a look at it. I am not
looking additional features,
just fixes for the endless bugs that make it almost impossible to use.
Thank you for
the tip!

-T

[Alan Barwick]

vitamin,

Which products do you recommend to replace M$ Access?

Alan

[oiaohm]

Todd And Margo Chester some of the issue with Tables is ODF. ODF supports more forms of tables than MS Office does. I do copy and paste tables quite commonalty inside openoffice full formatting transfer. I guess you have save mode .doc. Basically stop being stupid and save openoffice native and most of your table problems just disappear. Its the doc import export process that shots the hell out of tables. Go-oo does handle that better so less table problems.

I have no issues with OpenOffice and tables thinking all my documents remain ODF internally and are sent out to externals as PDF files.

Printing an envelope exactly what is up I only mail merged about 40 this morning with openoffice. This is not strange for me either. I have not had a issue with envelope printing since early openoffice 2.x time frame. Exactly what was the last openoffice you tried. Please don't be another troll who just because it did not work in a old version it still has to be broken now.

For access I have used Kexi for years. Currently waiting for it to be come free on windows instead of the 99 EUR. If you have to use openoffice base back onto mysql unless you want to go insane.

[vitamin]

Which products do you recommend to replace M$ Access?

Anything that talks to DB and displays information out of it. Even simple grid & form written in PHP would be miles ahead.

[James Mckenzie]

Vitamin:

I was thinking about a real database, like MySql or even (yuck) MS SQL. Access has WAY too many limitations on data storage to function as a full time database. That being said, I worked on an Access project that was a user friendly front end for a MS SQL system. It provided forms and other functions that MS SQL, out of the box, does not. Mostly Oracle Forms type stuff. It even provided a semi-anonymous interface.

Yes, it would be much better to use an Open-Source product rather than a closed end product.

James McKenzie



-----Original Message-----

From: vitamin <[email protected]>
Sent: Apr 22, 2010 8:54 PM
To: [email protected]
Subject: [Wine] Re: Does Access 2003 work on Wine?


Alan Barwick wrote:

Which products do you recommend to replace M$ Access?

Anything that talks to DB and displays information out of it. Even simple grid & form written in PHP would be miles ahead.