Front-End for MS Access migration? [closed]
I switched the back-end on one application from MSacces to MSSQL a few years ago. Kept the front-end, because it worked well, and I didn't find anything as easy to use/modify.
I've never seen a MSAccess -> C# translator. However, you might be able to find a MSAccess to VB6 translator (their syntaxes are roughly similar), and from there there are VB6->VB.Net translators (and even VB.Net ->C# translators)
You could check out Oracle's Application Express. It's free and it's geared toward Access developers.
It has a migration assistant as well that you run your Access database through, it proccesses the data and the forms, migrates everything to an Oracle Database (this works with the free database, Oracle XE, and comes install by default) and builds web forms for your Access database.
So in the end you'll have your Access databases on the web, your data in Oracle and somewhat nice web front end for extending them.
As far as Oracle goes, the tool isn't half bad. You can sign up for a free instance to play around with here.
Here's the document that explains how you migrate Access Databases.
So, other than personnal distaste, why replace the Access front-end? May be easy to do for some (simple) databases, but most Access apps in the real world have a lot of complexity.
Lots of reasons for upgrading the back-end, of course (scalability, performance, db corruption, user-locking). Access even has a built-in "upgrade wizard" tool that allows you to split the forms and logic from the data, and upgrade the data to MS SQL server. If you want, use this wizard to upgrade the back-end to SQL Express, then manually migrate to another db platform.
Hope this is not too far off-topic, but sometimes all you need to do with Access is:
Upgrade the back-end (as we've already discussed)
Always make sure the front-ends are locked down (read-only)
If necessary, create different front-ends for different user roles (as a form of security).
If possible, have the front-ends copied locally on each workstation, for performance reasons. You may need to have a network script to check for new versions of the front-end.
I don't have any direct experience with it, but I did find an Access to ASP.Net converter tool called "Access Whiz" at http://www.microtools.us/