velohead66

We all know MS *highly reccommend* using primary fields.

But am I right in thinking very basic queries (were duplicates is not an issue) still work.
Basic in every context, one query off one table.

GaryK

Yes in your context a primary key field is not essential. Its not an M$ recommendation its a fundamental way to model data where you have relationships between tables.

Gary

velohead66

Thanks,

So, if you have more than one table its a must ??
And if a single table has no links to any other tables, its acceptable ??

Basically,I just use access a repository, and run simple queries.
I add 20,000 items (tickets) per week each with 6 fields per ticket.
That makes 1,000,000 over the year.
I then run simple queries of this data set.

GaryK

Yes well when you need to create joins on one or more tables then you need a unique field in each table. This can either be a generated by the DB or you can use business data to represent the unique key. You may find however that having a unique indexed primary key field will in fact improve the performance of even simple queries.

With that volume I wouldnt consider using MS Access either. Its very poor when dealing with large datasets and/or concurrent users and it isnt ANSI 92 SQL compliant which basically means the SQL syntax is slightly different from all the 'industrial strength' databases such as SQL server, Oracle etc.

You might want to look at SQL Server 2005 Express which is a cut down version of the full SQL Server and will retail for £49. This replaces MSDE (which may still be available) and that is/was completely free although that was just the engine and didnt come with any management tools.

Gary