Re: Do Access & Informix Mix?

TRONCONE. FREDERICK wrote: > > Hi all, > A quick question from an experienced access user and a total dumb-ass when it > comes to informix:- > > Has anyone out there had any experience with using an Access front end with > Informix tables? The old character based interface is getting a bit tired > and the system does not attract a lot of users... > > Any thoughts, ideas, comments, etc would be appreciated. > > Fred Troncone. We initally planned to use access as a front end to a large Informix installation. This method requires the use of ODBC drivers which are a nightmare to configure properly. Access is a great tool for some types of reporting and querying, but Access NEVER (OK, sometimes it does) writes very efficient queries. For example, when joining tables Access will run 2 queries against the database in many instances - one for each table, and actually attempt to perform the join on the PC. This is extremely slow. One way to bypass this is by using 'pass-through' queries. Access also likes to GPF and is a memory hog. I would recommend using New-Era, or Visual Basic with Q+E's database vbx's. We have found that Access is a great tool for protyping database designs, though.