Sharing Microsoft Jet Databases on the Web

You can also create simple client/server applications that the use a Web browser, such as Microsoft Internet Explorer, as a front-end used to access a Microsoft Jet database. It is beyond the scope of this book to discuss this in great detail, but this section will point you to resources that document how to do this.

You can use the Active Server Pages (ASP) components of Microsoft Internet Information Server 3.0 on Windows NT Server version 4.0 to access a Microsoft Jet database. You can also install and use the Active Server Pages components from a workstation used as a Web server with Microsoft Peer Web Services 3.0 on Windows NT Workstation version 4.0 or Microsoft Personal Web Server version 1.0a on Windows 95.

For information about:

• Microsoft Internet Information Server 3.0 and installing the Active Server Pages components, see the Internet Information Server Web site at http://www.microsoft.com/iis/
  
  
• Microsoft Peer Web Server 3.0, see the Peer Web Services Web site at http://www.microsoft.com/ntworkstation/info/aapeerweb.htm
  
  
• Microsoft Personal Web Server 1.0a, see the Internet Explorer Starter Kit Web site at http://www.microsoft.com/ie/iesk/pws.htm

After you have installed Active Server Pages on any of the three Web servers, you can view the Active Server Pages online documentation. On the Windows Start menu, point to Programs, point to your Web server’s submenu, and then click Active Server Pages Roadmap. From the Roadmap, you can also view the Adventure Works sample Web site, which demonstrates many of the features of Active Server Pages scripting and is an excellent source of sample code. You can also view the Roadmap by typing the following address: http://yourserver/iasdocs/aspdocs/roadmap.asp, where yourserver is the domain name of your server. The Roadmap documentation requires either Microsoft Internet Explorer version 3.0 or later, or a browser that supports frames. You will get the best results with Microsoft Internet Explorer.

The Database Access component of Active Server Pages uses ActiveX Data Objects (ADO) to provide easy access to information stored in a database that complies with the Open Database Connectivity (ODBC) standard. To access a Microsoft Jet database, you use the Microsoft Access ODBC Driver. For information about how to create an Active Server Pages application that opens a database, open the Active Server Pages Roadmap documentation as described above, and then in the Contents frame, open Tutorial, Module 2, Lesson 3, “Using the Database Access Component.”