Category Archives: Microsoft Access 2010

Mar 27

Total Access Analyzer Ships for Microsoft Access 2010

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Microsoft Access 2010Microsoft Access Database DocumentationMicrosoft Access Database DocumentationMicrosoft Access Documenter

Microsoft Access Database Documentation and Analysis

300 Ways To Create Better Microsoft Access Applications

FMS is pleased to announce Total Access Analyzer 2010 is now shipping with support for both the 32 and 64 bit versions of Microsoft Access 2010. Total Access Analyzer is the world’s most popular Microsoft Access product winning every Best Access Add-in Award since 1994. This is the tenth major release of Total Access Analyzer since its debut in 1992.

Comprehensive Microsoft Access Database Documentation

Total Access Analyzer examines each Microsoft Access database to provide detailed documentation of individual objects and their relationships to each other. Comprehensive code analysis of VBA module code and macros is also performed. A powerful search features lets you find any string across all the properties, macros, and modules. Over 375 presentation quality reports are available with a wide variety of customization, sorting, and filtering options.

Avoid Crashes Before You Ship

The popularity of Total Access Analyzer is its ability to help Access users and developers improve their applications, avoid errors that can cause their solutions to crash, and learn best practices to increase their skills. By using Total Access Analyzer to take over an existing application, during development, and before deployment as part of one’s quality assurance process, developers can avoid embarrassing mistakes and improve consistency and performance.

Most importantly, Total Access Analyzer detects 300 ways to avoid errors, apply best practices, and improve performance. By leveraging our years of experience and customer feedback, FMS has created the most powerful system for diagnosing Microsoft Access applications. For instance, Total Access Analyzer can detect broken references to tables, fields, forms, reports, macros, and VBA code that will cause the database to crash as soon as they’re encountered. It finds unused objects (tables, queries, forms, and reports), macros, classes, procedures, variables, constants, etc. to help developers get rid of unnecessary and old work.

Advanced analysis is also performed to detect inconsistent field definitions across tables, duplicate SQL definitions, macro command problems, etc. Multi-level object and code relationships are presented with three advanced hierarchical diagrams showing application flow, data flow, and object containership.

Microsoft Access users, developers, and consultants of all levels rely on Total Access Analyzer to deliver great solutions. “Total Access Analyzer is an amazing product that I’ve relied on and recommended for years,” said Sal Ricciardi Programming Writer for Microsoft Corporation. “It’s a huge time saver.”

New Features and Support for Microsoft Access 2010

Total Access Analyzer 2010 adds many enhancements in addition to supporting both 32 and 64 bit versions of Microsoft Access 2010. Its VBA module code parser now supports the conditional compiler syntax (e.g. #If VBA7 Then) that’s common for supporting 32 and 64 bit environments. There’s advanced macro documentation and analysis that includes a “macro compiler” to validate if macro commands have the proper number of parameters. Improved views and reports simplify the review and printouts of macro lines scattered in embedded macros across the forms and reports. New temporary variable analysis documents and detects undefined and unused TempVars set by macros and modules. A variety of other new suggestions were added to detect timer event inconsistencies, query performance enhancement opportunities, and reserved word conflicts with the upcoming SQL Server 2012. With all the new features, Total Access Analyzer remains the most powerful diagnostic tool for Microsoft Access databases.

“Total Access Analyzer provides the comprehensive documentation and analysis that empowers Access users and developers to takeover existing Access applications and enhance them,” said Luke Chung, President and founder of FMS. “Total Access Analyzer offers a cost-effective way to understand what’s going on in a database, detect errors, improve quality, and learn Best Practices. It should be part of the quality assurance process during development and certainly before shipping. If it doesn’t pass Total Access Analyzer’s review, it’s not ready for deployment. It’s fundamental to our own Access development efforts.”

Availability and Pricing

Total Access Analyzer 2010 is available immediately from FMS for $299. Existing owners of Total Access Analyzer can upgrade for only $199. Total Access Analyzer is available via ESD and also comes with a professionally printed user manual and CD.

Official Press Release

Mar 23

Microsoft Access Forms with Cascading Combo Boxes and List Boxes

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Microsoft AccessIn Microsoft Access, a common need is to have multiple combo boxes or list boxes on a form, and to have the selection in one combo box limit the choices in a second combo box or listbox. For example, consider an Address form containing State and City lookups. When you select a state, you want the list of cities list to be limited the selected state.

This is known as cascading combo boxes or synchronized combo boxes.

We recently posted a tip and demo database containing a sample of species, both plants and animals, categorized by their taxonomic rank (kingdom, phylum, class, order, family, and genus). When you select the value “Animal” from the Kingdom combo box, the Phylum combo box is updated to only show Animal phylum. The Species list box is also filtered by your selection.

To learn more, read our page on Creating Cascading Combo Boxes and List Boxes on Microsoft Access Forms and download our sample database.

Feb 24

Microsoft Access Free Book Offer with FMS Product Suites

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Access 2010 Programmer's Reference (Wrox Programmer to Programmer)

by Teresa Hennig, Rob Cooper, Geoffrey Griffith, and Jerry Dennison

Written by our long-time friends who are Microsoft MVPs and members of the Microsoft Access development team, Teresa Hennig, Rob Cooper, Geoffrey Griffith and Jerry Dennison wrote Microsoft Access 2010 Programmer's Reference, which also applies to Microsoft Access 2007.

Thanks to a special arrangement with the authors and their publisher, Wrox, we are pleased to offer a limited quantity of this book for FREE to purchasers of any of our Access product suites. A $45 value.

Simply purchase one of these suites:

and click here to add it to your cart, or mention this offer when ordering.

Terms and Conditions plus more information

Feb 13

Transposing Data in Microsoft Access Tables and Data Normalization

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Microsoft AccessMicrosoft SQL ServerData normalization is fundamental to database design. Properly normalized data makes it easy to support an application over time and simplifies the querying, displaying, and reporting features of an application. 

Unfortunately, we don’t always receive or have normalized data. Tables that require adding fields as the data changes over time are particularly problematic and violate the basic premise of database design where adding records is free, but adding fields is expensive:

Here are some updated resources detailing the value of data normalization, including a sample database and VBA code to transpose and normalize your existing data.

These and other related papers are part of our developer centers:

Hope these help you create more scalable, maintainable, and analyzable databases.

For advanced data analysis, check out our Total Access Statistics add-in product.

Feb 09

Free Preview of Total Access Analyzer for Microsoft Access 2010 Database Documentation

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Microsoft Access 2010Microsoft Access Database DocumentationMicrosoft Access Database DocumentationMicrosoft Access Documenter

The Microsoft Access 2010 version of Total Access Analyzer is close to shipping and we are pleased to offer a FREE preview for you to try it.

Total Access Analyzer is the most popular Microsoft Access add-in and the winner of every Best Microsoft Access Add-in award ever. With Total Access Analyzer, you can truly understand what's going on in your database. Generate comprehensive documentation of all your database objects, get detailed table and field lists, module code printouts, form and report blueprints, and much more. Get detailed cross-references for how objects are linked to each other so you know exactly where each table, query, form, report, macro and module procedure is used. The Application Flow, Data Flow, and Object Flow Diagrams show how code and objects flow across your entire application. Over 300 professional quality and customizable reports are available.

Almost 300 types of issues are uncovered to pinpoint errors, suggest design improvement, and recommend performance tips. Find unused objects, missing field references, unused code and many other things that should be fixed before you deploy your applications. Many of the tips are recommended Best Practices for Access development, so you'll learn how the pros improve their design and development techniques.

We've added many new features to support Access 2010, generate more useful documentation, identify more errors, and suggest more design improvements and best practices. We've also improved the user experience with the ability to open a cross-referenced item in design mode while viewing the information, previewing multiple reports at once, and adding color to all reports. Here is a description of new features.

Take this opportunity to learn what Total Access Analyzer can do for you. See how it documents your databases and identifies errors and opportunities for improving them at the object and code levels. Discover why so many Access users and professionals rely on the program to deliver and create more robust solutions.

The preview version is available for immediate download and is fully functional. It expires on March 15, 2012.

Jan 04

Total Access Detective Ships for Microsoft Access 2010

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Microsoft Access 2010Microsoft Access Database and Object Comparison ProductTotal Access Detective for Microsoft AccessFind Differences Between Microsoft Access Objects and Databases

We are very pleased to announce that Total Access Detective for Microsoft Access 2010 is now shipping with support for the 32 and 64 bit versions of Access 2010.

Ever wonder what changed between your database versions or the difference between two similar objects or tables? Total Access Detective is the premier program to detect differences between Microsoft Access databases, objects, code, and data.

Available as a Microsoft Access add-in, Total Access Detective lets you easily find differences between objects in your currently opened database. Easily find changes in your table and field definitions, object properties, controls, report sections, embedded macros, regular macros, modules, and data. The results are available to you in reports and on screen which can be copied or exported.

You can also compare any two databases to easily find exactly how they changed. Your databases can be an ACCDB, MDB or ADP database format. The new version lets you create separate databases for each comparison so you can easily manage multiple databases and changes over time.

We've added many new features to make Total Access Detective more powerful than ever:

  • Supports Microsoft Access 2010, 32 and 64-bit versions
  • Compares All Database Types Supported by Access 2010
  • Compares the new Microsoft Access 2010 enhancements including new object properties, macro syntax, and VBA commands
  • Performs Line-by-Line Comparisons of Embedded Macros
  • Procedures that Did Not Change are Listed
  • New Data Comparison Option to Ignore Case Differences
  • When Comparing Modules, Optionally Ignore Blank Lines and Comments (also applies to text block comparisons)
  • Exclude Properties from Comparison
  • Create and Manage Multiple Database Comparison Results. You are no longer limited to one set of comparison results!
  • Command Line Launching of Total Access Detective Can Now Specify Storage Database Name
  • Improved User Interface with Office/Access 2010 Theme Support
  • New Reports and Improved Selection Screen
  • New User Manual and Context Sensitive Help

Manually comparing databases for design and data differences is prone to error. Discover why so many Microsoft Access professionals rely on Total Access Detective to improve their productivity by quickly identifying the changes in their work.

Dec 23

Total Access Components 2010 Ships with 32 and 64 bit ActiveX Controls

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Microsoft Access ActiveX custom controlsMicrosoft Access ActiveX controls with Total Access ComponentsMicrosoft Access 2010Create dazzling Microsoft Access User Interfaces with Total Access Components

Microsoft Access ActiveX Controls on a FormTotal Access Components 2010 Ships with 32 and 64 bit ActiveX Controls

Create dazzling forms with Total Access Components, the only collection of custom controls designed specifically for Microsoft Access.

With little or no code, add advanced menus, rotated text, bitmap animation, resizer and splitter bars, progress meters, gauges, dials, sliders, spin buttons, pop-up notes, Windows dialogs, clocks, fancy buttons, borders, rotated tabs, cursors, etc. A sample database includes examples of every control and how to customize them.

Microsoft Access Progress Meters

The 2010 version is rebuilt using C++ version 10 and supports both 32 and 64 bit platforms without having to make any changes to your forms or code.

Total Access Components 2010 supports Access 2000 through 2010. It includes a royalty-free distribution license and a deployment program to easily distribute it to your users. See all the new features and download the free trial version.

Nov 28

Microsoft Access 2010 Error Number and Description Resource

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As a resource for the Microsoft Access community, we’ve updated our comprehensive list of Microsoft Access Error Codes and Descriptions for Microsoft Access 2010.

There are PDF reports of the error codes and descriptions, and a database containing a with each error code and its different descriptions access MSAccess versions 2010, 2007, 2003, 2002, and 2000.

Here’s the detailed HTML page that lists every Microsoft Access 2010 error code with its description and for some of them, hyperlinks to resources that address the error and/or provide more information on the topic. Since this page is so large, please be patient while it loads.

This resources is part of our Microsoft Access Developer Help Center where you’ll find lots of other information to improve your skills. Hope this helps!

Nov 10

Total Access Detective Free Preview for Microsoft Access 2010 Difference Comparisons

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Microsoft Access 2010Microsoft Access Database and Object Comparison ProductTotal Access Detective for Microsoft AccessFind Differences Between Microsoft Access Objects and Databases

We are very pleased to offer a Free Preview of Total Access Detective for Microsoft Access 2010. (The Preview version has now expired.)

Ever wonder what changed between your database versions or the difference between two similar objects or tables? Total Access Detective is the premier program to detect differences between Microsoft Access databases, objects, code, and data.

Available as a Microsoft Access add-in, Total Access Detective lets you easily find differences between objects in your currently opened database. Easily find changes in your table and field definitions, object properties, controls, report sections, embedded macros, regular macros, modules, and data. The results are available to you in reports and on screen which can be copied or exported.

You can also compare any two databases to easily find exactly how they changed. Your databases can be an ACCDB, MDB or ADP database format. The new version lets you create separate databases for each comparison so you can easily manage multiple databases and changes over time.

We’ve added many new features to make Total Access Detective more powerful than ever.

Manually comparing databases for design and data differences is prone to error. Discover why so many Microsoft Access professionals rely on Total Access Detective to improve their productivity by quickly identifying the changes in their work.

Tell us how it works for you!

Nov 09

Microsoft Access Append Query Examples and SQL Syntax

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We've enhanced our Microsoft Access Query Help Center with a new paper describing Microsoft Access Append (Insert) Queries, and how to use them to add multiple records or a single record to a table.


We also discuss why rather than using a Make Table query, it's preferable to use an existing table, empty it, then fill it with an Append query.