Microsoft Access is a database management system (DBMS) from Microsoft that combines

the relationalMicrosoft Jet Database Engine with a graphical user interface and softwaredevelopment tools. It is a member of the Microsoft Office suite of applications, included in the
Professional and higher editions or sold separately.
Microsoft Access stores data in its own format based on the Access Jet Database Engine. It can
also import or link directly to data stored in other applications and databases.[1]
Software developers, data architects and power users can use Microsoft Access to
develop application software. Like other Microsoft Office applications, Access is supported by Visual
Basic for Applications (VBA), an object-based programming language that can reference a variety of
objects including DAO (Data Access Objects),ActiveX Data Objects, and many other ActiveX
components. Visual objects used in forms and reports expose their methods and properties in the
VBA programming environment, and VBA code modules may declare and call Windows operating
system operations.
Contents
1History
o 1.1Project Omega
o 1.2Project Cirrus
o 1.3Timeline
2Uses
3Features
o 3.1Access Services and Web database
o 3.2Import or Link sources
4Microsoft Access Runtime
5Development
o 5.1Split database architecture
o 5.2Migration to SQL Server
6Protection
7File extensions
8Versions
9See also
10References
11External links

History[edit]
Project Omega[edit]
Microsoft's first attempt to sell a relational database product was during the mid 1980s, when
Microsoft obtained the license to sell R:Base.[2] In the late 1980s Microsoft developed its own solution
codenamed Omega.[3] It was confirmed in 1988 that a database product for Windows and OS/2 was
in development.[4][5] It was going to include the "EB" Embedded Basic language,[3] which was going to

be the language for writing macros in all Microsoft applications,[6] but the unification of macro
languages did not happen until the introduction of Visual Basic for Applications (VBA). Omega was
also expected to provide a front end to the Microsoft SQL Server.[7] The application was very
resource-hungry, and there were reports that it was working slowly on the 386 processors that were
available at the time.[8] It was scheduled to be released in the 1st quarter of 1990,[9] but in 1989 the
development of the product was reset[2][10] and it was rescheduled to be delivered no sooner than in
January 1991.[11] Parts of the project were later used for other Microsoft projects: Cirrus (codename
for Access) and Thunder (codename for Visual Basic, where the Embedded Basic engine was
used).[2][3] After Access's premiere, the Omega project was demonstrated in 1992 to several
journalists and included features that were not available in Access.[12]

Project Cirrus[edit]
After the Omega project was scrapped, some of its developers were assigned to the Cirrus project
(most were assigned to the team which created Visual Basic).[2] Its goal was to create a competitor
for applications like Paradox or dBase that would work on Windows.[13] After Microsoft
acquired FoxPro, there were rumors that the Microsoft project might get replaced with it,[14] but the
company decided to develop them in parallel. It was assumed that the project would make use
of Extensible Storage Engine (Jet Blue)[15] but, in the end, only support for Microsoft Jet Database
Engine (Jet Red) was provided. The project used some of the code from both the Omega project
and a pre-release version of Visual Basic.[3] In July 1992, betas of Cirrus shipped to
developers[16] and the name Access became the official name of the product.[17]

Timeline[edit]
1992: Microsoft released Access version 1.0 on 13 November 1992, and an Access 1.1 release in
May 1993 to improve compatibility with other Microsoft products and to include the Access Basic
programming language.
1994: Microsoft specified the minimum hardware requirements for Access v2.0 as: Microsoft
Windows v3.1 with 4 MB of RAM required, 6 MB RAM recommended; 8 MB of available hard
disk space required, 14 MB hard disk space recommended. The product shipped on seven 1.44 MB
diskettes. The manual shows a 1994 copyright date.
Originally, the software worked well with relatively small databases but testing showed that some
circumstances caused data corruption. For example, file sizes over 10 MB proved problematic (note
that most hard disks held less than 500 MB at the time this was in wide use), and the Getting
Started manual warns about a number of circumstances where obsolete device drivers or incorrect
configurations can cause data loss. With the phasing out of Windows 95, 98 and ME, improved
network reliability, and Microsoft having released 8 service packs for the Jet Database Engine, the
reliability of Access databases has improved[when?] and it supports both more data and a larger
number of users.

With Office 95, Microsoft Access 7.0 (a.k.a. "Access 95") became part of the Microsoft Office
Professional Suite, joining Microsoft Excel, Word, and PowerPoint and transitioning from Access
Basic to VBA. Since then, Microsoft has released new versions of Microsoft Access with each
release of Microsoft Office. This includes Access 97 (version 8.0), Access 2000 (version 9.0),
Access 2002 (version 10.0), Access 2003 (version 11.5), Access 2007 (version 12.0), Access 2010
(version 14.0), and Access 2013 (version 15.0).
Versions 3.0 and 3.5 of Microsoft Jet database engine (used by Access 7.0 and the later-released
Access 97 respectively) had a critical issue which made these versions of Access unusable on a
computer with more than 1 GB of memory.[18] While Microsoft fixed this problem for Jet 3.5/Access 97
post-release, it never fixed the issue with Jet 3.0/Access 95.
The native Access database format (the Jet MDB Database) has also evolved over the years.
Formats include Access 1.0, 1.1, 2.0, 7.0, 97, 2000, 2002, 2007, and 2010. The most significant
transition was from the Access 97 to the Access 2000 format; which is not backward compatible with
earlier versions of Access. As of 2011all newer versions of Access support the Access 2000 format.
New features were added to the Access 2002 format which can be used by Access 2002, 2003,
2007, and 2010.
Microsoft Access 2000 increased the maximum database size to 2GB from 1GB in Access 97.
Microsoft Access 2007 introduced a new database format: ACCDB. It supports links to SharePoint
lists and complex data types such as multivalue and attachment fields. These new field types are
essentially recordsets in fields and allow the storage of multiple values or files in one field. Microsoft
Access 2007 also introduced File Attachment field, which stored data more efficiently than the OLE
(Object Linking and Embedding) field.
Microsoft Access 2010 introduced a new version of the ACCDB format supported hosting Access
Web solutions on a SharePoint 2010 server. For the first time, this allowed Access solutions to be
run without having to install Access on their PC and was the first support of Mac users. Any user on
the SharePoint site with sufficient rights could use the Access Web solution. A copy of Access was
still required for the developer to create the Access Web solution, and the desktop version of Access
remained part of Access 2010. The Access Web solutions were not the same as the desktop
solutions. Automation was only through the macro language (not VBA) which Access automatically
converted to JavaScript. The data was no longer in an Access database but SharePoint lists. An
Access desktop database could link to the SharePoint data, so hybrid applications were possible so
that SharePoint users needing basic views and edits could be supported while the more
sophisticated, traditional solutions could remain in the desktop Access database.
Microsoft Access 2013 offers traditional Access desktop solutions plus a significantly updated
SharePoint 2013 web solution.[19] The Access Web model in Access 2010 was replaced by a new
architecture that stores its data in actual SQL Server databases. Unlike SharePoint lists, this offers

true relational database design with referential integrity, scalability, extensibility and performance
one would expect from SQL Server.[20] The database solutions that can be created on SharePoint
2013 offer a modern user interface designed to display multiple levels of relationships that can be
viewed and edited, along with resizing for different devices and support for touch. The Access 2013
desktop is similar to Access 2010 but several features were discontinued including support for
Access Data Projects (ADPs), pivot tables, pivot charts, Access data collections, source code
control, replication, and other legacy features.[21] Access desktop database maximum size remained
2GB (as it has been since the 2000 version).
Prior to the introduction of Access, Borland (with Paradox and dBase) and Fox (with FoxPro)
dominated the desktop database market. Microsoft Access was the first mass-market database
program for Windows. With Microsoft's purchase of FoxPro in 1992 and the incorporation of Fox's
Rushmore query optimization routines into Access, Microsoft Access quickly became the dominant
database for Windows - effectively eliminating the competition which failed to transition from the MSDOSworld.[22]
Access's initial codename was Cirrus; the forms engine was called Ruby. This was before Visual
Basic. Bill Gates saw the prototypes and decided that the BASIClanguage component should be codeveloped as a separate expandable application, a project called Thunder. The two projects were
developed separately.
Access was also the name of a communications program from Microsoft, meant to compete
with ProComm and other programs. This proved a failure and was dropped.[23] Years later, Microsoft
reused the name for its database software.