Foreword

Welcome to the second edition of the Microsoft® Jet Database Engine Programmer’s Guide! We are proud to bring to you, the database developer looking to get the most out of the world’s most powerful file-sharing database engine, a new edition of this popular guide. This guide will assist the database developer and user alike to discover and use many of the features and capabilities that are beyond the scope of the standard how-to documentation supplied with the many products that use the Jet database engine. Based on the success of and the feedback from the first edition, we are very happy to see our goal of helping developers create faster, smaller, and more robust database applications being fulfilled.

The Microsoft Jet Database Engine Programmer’s Guide is designed to assist you in getting the most out of the Jet database engine. As Michael Mee noted in the first edition, we frequently hear about applications not taking full advantage of the wealth of advanced, as well as basic, features Microsoft Jet has to offer. We here on the Microsoft Jet team are very proud of the robustness of our product, and take great joy in seeing our work used to its fullest potential!

This guide is also for the experienced Microsoft Jet user looking for technical information new to Microsoft Jet version 3.5. The theme for Microsoft Jet 3.5 was, essentially, to improve performance and embrace the Internet. On the performance front, many improvements were made that are enabled “right out of the box.” In addition, we also opened up several areas of the engine for your individual tuning. (We discuss some unsupported tuning features in this guide as well!) We talk in-depth about performance in this guide, including the exciting new ODBCDirect functionality in Data Access Objects (DAO) version 3.5.

For just about every product here at Microsoft, embracing the Internet has become paramount. Microsoft Jet 3.5 introduces the capability to access (import, link, or export) HTML tables over the Internet. Users can now also use the Internet to access external data on HTTP or FTP servers through Microsoft Jet’s installable ISAM (IISAM) drivers. Applications that use replication can now perform exchanges over the Internet too! These revisions will help you use these as well as other exciting new features and improvements in Microsoft Jet and DAO 3.5 to their fullest potential.

You also get:

• Internal information previously known only by the software engineers who develop Microsoft Jet.
  
  
• Tips from the testers who have each written more code using Microsoft Jet than most development teams write in a lifetime.
  
  
• Expanded information that was left out of product documentation because it was “too technical.”
  
  
• Insights from the people who actually designed, developed, and tested Microsoft Jet and DAO.
  
  
• Common pitfalls, traps, and useful techniques from the talented product support engineers who take your phone calls.
  
  
• Tables and appendixes that assemble technical errata into useful formats.

This guide is the culmination of the efforts of a broad range of technical contributors. Information comes from Microsoft Jet, DAO, and Microsoft Access engineers, product support personnel, technical writers and editors, and last, but not least, very experienced Microsoft Jet users, who bring real-world experience to the material. Many thanks to the original authors of the Microsoft Jet Database Engine Programmer’s Guide, Dan Haught and Jim Ferguson, for helping provide the excellent foundation this new edition is based upon.

Thank You!

Lee Woods
Microsoft Jet Product Unit Manager