SQL Server Express Back-end Set up Help

[Magic_Sponge]

Hi everyone - please be gentle with me on this one!

I recently moved to a new company and their network setup is different in that we use Dropbox for shared files, which I'm given to understand Access does not interact well with. In my last place I had an Access back-end saved on the network which users updated using front-end Access DBs. Fairly light usage and all worked ok.

Given this new setup, I am investigating using SQL Server Express as my back-end. But this is now completely new territory for me. I've managed to setup SQL Server Express fine on my laptop, and link Access front-end to it on that laptop, but what I'm completely at a loss of how to do is make it so anyone can connect to the back end when I distribute the front end. My knowledge of this side of things is so thin, I'm not even sure a) I'm explaining what I want to do in a coherent way; and b) what I'm asking for is even possible.

Any help greatly appreciated.

 

[ranman256]

use ODBC to create a DSN connection to your db & tables.
in access click: external data, new data source, from db, Sql server, LINK to data, select the DSN via Machine Data source, [YOUR SQL DB]
(sometimes in older access: external data, odbc, LINK to data, select the DSN via Machine Data source, [YOUR SQL DB]
it now becomes a external linked table.

 

[Magic_Sponge]

Thank you for the quick reply, I will try that later and see how I get on. I feel like I tried that, but given I was shooting around in the dark I may have come close but not quite have done the right thing!

Would this solution require users to download anything (ODBC drivers for example) themselves, or would it all be taken care of on the setup of the front end I'm creating? And if it would, is it ever possible to find a solution that wouldn't, or is that asking the impossible?

Thanks again