Hi Erel,
Nothing wrong with MS Access. Out of all the products MS make it's the only one that i like. Unlike sqLite, MS Access is true multi user and with record locking. It provides transactional database functionality at the VBA level.
For small businesses with less than 100 users MS Access is low cost and with VBA using record-sets it is very easy to program quite complex functions.
MS Access is used as the database engine for process tag management at Loy Yang B Power Station and manages about 40,000 tags each with related tables for most of the fields. We also used it in the business system for budgeting, with about 30 users on at any-one time. All developed in-house by power station engineers, not expensive IT experts. The accountants replaced it with a proprietary system costing over three hundred thousand which trashed all of the intrinsic MS Access functionality like filters and on the fly queries and reports, so that instead of taking one screen to find a project it took 14.
The engineering personnel went back to using Excel spread sheets for their budgeting activities. Right where they started.
We also used MS Access for downloading plant historian data with millions of records of up to 100 double float fields.
Professional database programmers hate MS Access because it doesn't make them any money!
I have been using MsAccess for at least 20 years to carry out procedures of all kinds, and I continue to use it to this day
And based on my experience I can say that I would never, ever use an mdb or accdb file to keep the main data of any of my clients, even if it were a single-user system
For multi-user systems, this is not even mentioned
I believe that the fragility of a multi-user system based on Microsoft Access data files is known to all
Nobody questions the effectiveness (and performance) of Access for building desktop applications and used by a single user
But for a multi-user environment, which must guarantee reliability in the maintenance of information, keeping the data on mdb or accdb files means going in search of harming yourself
Just one consideration is enough, any db server can perform hot backups, without interrupting the users' activity
How do you do the same thing on an mdb or accdb based system?
It is not true that professional programmers hate Access, there are many groups, with experienced professional operators, who discuss issues and offer / receive technical support
The reality is that you have to use a tool for what it can do best, and in the case of Access the effectiveness in creating the front-end is undeniable
As it is undeniable that it is better to keep data on Sql Server, Oracle, Db2, Informix, Postregsql, Firebird, MySql, etc ..
Rather it would be to understand why Access is not used to connect to the data of the main database, that of the accountants
Allowing calculations, reports, graphics that for other users (engineering personnel) are more comfortable