Database without purchasing MS Access on XP

[markza]

Hi,

Really sorry to ask this but I'm not too clued up with databases at all and can't find anything to help me by searching the site.

I'm creating/created an application where I'm storing data to to a database.  I have the database connectivity toolkit and have developed my application to run with MS Access (.accdb) files linking with udl files - and I have MS Access 2010 on my dev PC.  However, now I want to distribute/deploy my application on PC's with ONLY Windows XP installed, or any other free software.  Essentially the customer doesn't want to buy MS Access.

What are my options in order to do database storage but not purchase MS Access?  A clean XP machine doesn't even know what a udl file is, so I'm confused.

Can I use a free open source database program, postgres, sqlite?  If so, how do I link to those? Can I still use mdb files even though MS Access isn't installed?

Really sorry for the stupid questions, my head is just a bunch of jumble at the moment with all this mdb,accdb,sql,udl,dsn stuff.  I just need someone to point me in the right direction.

[falkpl]

You do not need access on any pc, if you have the access file and the jet engine you can communicte with the database using db toolkit (or several other methods).  Also you can consider sql server express which is also free.

[smercurio_fc · Accepted solution]

See here for the MS Access question:

Can I Access MDE Files Using the LabVIEW Database Connectivity Toolkit on a Computer Without Microso...

As for alternatives, there's MySQL and MS SQL Server Express. Which one you should use really depends on how complex your schema is, and whether you have a lot of dependence on stored procedures. Last time I had checked MySQL didn't have a whole lot of support for stored procedures.

Also, as an alternative to the Database Connectivity Toolkit you can also use the free LabSQL.

[markza]

Thanks, appreciate it.

Just downloaded the Access database engine and it then knew what to do with the udl file at last.

[mikeporter]

Just to add a bit more to the discussion, if you change the file extension of the udl file to txt and open it with notepad you'll notice that all it contains is the ADO connection string required to access the database.

Also, Oracle has a full-functional version of their database free to use along with some very cool development tools (SQL Developer and Data Modeller) - also for free. But whatever you do, dump the DCT - it adds a ton of complexity, complicates troubleshooting and is totally unnecessary.

Mike...

[Maxilo]

Thanks for the information, has been very useful to me