hi

does anyone run ms access databases on mac (i guess using virtual pc)?

any issues with it?

cheers
steven

 

I've got an Intel iMac and I've tried Access under Q, Parallels and the new CrossOver beta (came out yesterday).

Access seems to run fine, but I've not exactly been creating databases with it. What I've been trying to do is use a remotely hosted database via Access. With Q I could not do that due to it's networking limitations. Parallels would allow me to access it from here (Canada) but it was too slow to be useable. If I was in the UK office it might be a bit better.

With crossover, well, it's the first beta and we had a few errors pop up when trying to access our database and that might simple be due to the beta rather than access not performing correctly.

I've not tried bootcamp as my machine has it's drive partitioned into three, so I cannot currently install bootcamp, plus if the idea is that I'd be able to use the database along side OS X, so a VM solution is better for me than a dual boot solution.

With regards to the Parallels network woes, I did try using the database from a real PC over here and it was around 2 seconds quicker overall than Parallels, so the speed issue is really down to the network connection between here and the UK, rather than a failing of Parallels.

I cannot comment on VPC as I've not tried that, but I'd guess if you had a G5 with a good complement of RAM then VPC would run fairly quickly and allow you to use Access at a decent rate.

 

I use MS Office 2007 on my MacBook Pro in Parallels and to be honest it's the stunningly fast. I run apps faster than I've run them in the past on actual PCs.

I also use multiple Terminal Service sessions and there seems to be zero slowdown.