connect to an access database on another computer over the internet

Hi we have got an application that was made for us over ten years ago using Visual Basic 6, and we have the source code for the application.

The application uses an access 97 database on the C:\ drive of the local machine.

We now want to put the database on another machine so more than one user can connect to the database over the internet so all users of the application are using the same data.

Does anyone have any experience of doing this or know how to go about it?

Thanks in advance

Phill

Well it should be placed in a shared drive with read/write access for the users.

Thanks for the reply, the problem with that is it will work fine while they are in the office. But they also need to connect from their laptops while they are away from the office.

And two of the users are in another office so just having a shared drive wouldnt work.

Phill

Well, this laptop must have access to the PC wuth the database: either via some network (LAN, WLAN, ...) or via VPN.

I was thinking about VPN but wasnt 100% sure if that would work. Is there anyway that the program can connect to another computer by itself in the background. With out the user been able to login to the computer with the database? Or they would be able to copy the database from the server to there own machine.

Thanks again

Phill

For Access the code has to have access to the machine where the database resides. If you do not have a way to share the drive remotely then the other options are. Remote desktop, 3rd party software like TeamViewer or something similar. These would not require you to re write anything. The other option would be to use a web server and create a web site or web service to handle the data access which would require a redesign of the app.

Most hosts still allow you to have an Access and SQL DB running. The one that I use does. I wouldn't want more than 3 people working on the table at the same time, though. Access just was NOT designed for that, and tends to corrupt tables. Especially older versions of Access.