Microsoft Releases Free Access 2007 Runtime!

Wow! After all these years, the Access team releases the runtime version of Access for free. For those new to Access, why should you care? Well, most importantly, because the runtime version of Access lets you deploy your database application to other users in your business WITHOUT BUYING THE FULL VERSION OF ACCESS! That can mean huge savings to your organization, or mean your project can continue (where it might otherwise have halted because you couldn't deploy to other users given the license costs).
Here is the link:

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=D9AE78D9-9DC6-4B38-9FA6-2C745A175AED&displaylang=en


A few notes:

• The runtime version of Access is terrific, but you need to be much more diligent in your error handling (at least that was the case in previous versions, I'm sure it's the same with 2007). If your application encounters an unhandled error, it will terminate.
  
• The database window will never appear to your users, so you have to be creative in how you expose reports, queries, and data to your users.
• The nice toolbars for sort, filter, etc aren't visible to the user. Again, I haven't had time to check out the 2007 version, but that was the case in earlier releases. So it means you have to create form buttons to allow your users to perform the same actions.