Whatever happened to Microsoft Access?

[Dave2002]

MS Access used to be part of the Office Suite - but clearly many people don't use databases, or if they do, they don't use ones which have a strong reliance on SQL. It seems to have been dropped from most collections over the last few years, and now there seems to be hardly any trace of it at all.

Do people still use it, and is it still available - even as a separate program or as part of a comprehensive collection?

I'm not wild about using SQL - but curious as to why it seems to have disappeared. People who are interested in SQL can still use systems such as MySQL.

This page has some information about currently available systems - https://www.techjockey.com/blog/free...agement-system

[ChrisBennell]

I have an Office 365 subscription with Windows 10, and Access is still part of it. I have to say I don't use it though - I find Excel has everything I need in my retirement! Following your query, I called it up on my PC, and its all there. It's probably 20 years since I last used Access seriously at work!

[cloughie]

I have an Office 365 subscription with Windows 10, and Access is still part of it. I have to say I don't use it though - I find Excel has everything I need in my retirement! Following your query, I called it up on my PC, and its all there. It's probably 20 years since I last used Access seriously at work!

I looked at Access as a possible CD Index years ago and decided Excel was far more useful and have relied on that for I would guess around 20 years!

[richardfinegold]

I have an Office 365 subscription with Windows 10, and Access is still part of it. I have to say I don't use it though - I find Excel has everything I need in my retirement! Following your query, I called it up on my PC, and its all there. It's probably 20 years since I last used Access seriously at work!

Ditto, Access is included on my new 365 subscription

[ChrisBennell]

I looked at Access as a possible CD Index years ago and decided Excel was far more useful and have relied on that for I would guess around 20 years!

That's exactly what I use Excel for. For me its become more than a CD index though. I frequently buy my recordings though downloads (Presto Classical), or record straight from Radio 3 using Audacity. Sometimes I don't bother to make a CD from the downloads, but everything is tracked via my Excel "database".

[cloughie]

That's exactly what I use Excel for. For me its become more than a CD index though. I frequently buy my recordings though downloads (Presto Classical), or record straight from Radio 3 using Audacity. Sometimes I don't bother to make a CD from the downloads, but everything is tracked via my Excel "database".

Indeed, Chris, and the infinite search and sort choices are excellent, mind you I would hate to have to start the listing again! I have two lists one for classical another for non classical as different headings for each. Some crossovers appear on both!

[Dave2002]

I have an Office 365 subscription with Windows 10, and Access is still part of it. I have to say I don't use it though - I find Excel has everything I need in my retirement! Following your query, I called it up on my PC, and its all there. It's probably 20 years since I last used Access seriously at work!

That's interesting. Maybe it's only in the Windows versions, but I think some of the cut down versions (Home/Student etc.) don't have it even in Win PC formats.

I'm not particularly bothered - though at one time I was involved in teaching and using relational databases, and we used Access with its not exactly perfect SQL as a means of doing that. People who want to produce back end systems might still need to know about SQL - but that probably doesn't apply to most of us here now.

[johnb]

Lately I've been using Access (2003) to do initial processing on the downloads of CV19 cases by local authority because it is much easier to certain kinds of data manipulation in it, once the queries are set up.

(I have Office 365 on my new laptop but somehow always gravitate to Office 2003 on my older desktop.)

[Dave2002]

(I have Office 365 on my new laptop but somehow always gravitate to Office 2003 on my older desktop.)

The scary thing there is that we might have versions of that - Office 2003, or a similar vintage one - on one or two older Win machines we haven't quite got round to throwing away. They would probably be horrendously slow, and I'm not sure if we could remember the passwords either!

[mikealdren]

I bought Access when it first came out in the early 90s and it was on special offer at £99 IIRC. As a pilot project, I decided to catalogue my record and (then much smaller) CD collections with tables for composers, performers etc. I now use Office 2016 Pro and my Access database is still up to date with 22,452 track entries.

Over recent years, I've ripped all my CDs to computer and I effectively now have two databases. I use Musichi for my jukebox, it's really excellent and it's captured all the performer details as well as the track details etc. Access is better for customer searches and I can access data about performers (dates, nationality etc.) and I can do x-ref queries over tables that I can't do from Musichi - their database is their IP so I can only use their searches although these are really all I ever need.

[Dave2002]

I looked for updates as to what databases might be useful or available easily right now. Apparently quite a number of people are using something called Airtable. https://www.wired.com/story/database...ogramming-myth

There are a number of database packages, but personally I prefer to avoid anything which involves a "cloud". Such tools would make users reliant on networks and external software systems, and although some reports have suggested that they are safe, there is also an issue about data breaches and leaks - with potential legal consequences.

There are still some stand alone packages, and it appears that MariaDB and PostgreSQL are common enough. See here for a short list of candidates - https://blog.capterra.com/free-database-software/#4

There is a PostgreSQL app for Macs - https://postgresapp.com/

Note that whether a database is stored remotely, and runs on third party servers, or is hosted locally, there are legal considerations in either case. Now that many people are working from home, and some are now running what are effectively small to moderate sized databases (examples: which patients need to be picked up and taken for regular appointments to hospitals, which neighbours are in urgent need of food supplies ...) some people may fall foul of data protection laws, even though their motives are commendable.