Hello everyone,

My dad has been using Paradox/DOS for the past 15 years, version 4.0.2.
Currently he has it running on a Windows 7 machine, inside the 'Windows XP Mode'.

I know he uses it mostly just to enter data into tables,
and he has several (maybe 8) reports he can generate from one of the tables,
and some scripts,
and some forms for some of the tables.
That's it ! He hasn't 'coded' anything.
I am saying this because I have seen that some people have said here:
"I have thousands of code lines in my Paradox/DOS ! How do I convert it to a new system ???". I didn't know you could actually code in Paradox...

Anyway - my dad has mostly data, data, data ...
He would like to move from 'Paradox/DOS', which is sooooo outdated,
to a new system, like SQL Server, that has support (and probably will have for the next 100 years).

I would like to hear from the experts here :
a. What does it involve to migrate the data table from Paradox/DOS to SQL ?
b. What tools can I use to do this migration ?
c. How can I migrate the reports ?
d. How can I migrate the scripts ?
e. How can I migrate the forms ?

Thank you so much for your kind help !

SQL server will not support scripts, forms, reports directly
you will need something else (a front end if you will that has the user interface), and use a storage mechanism for the back end. whether SQL server is 'the' 'right' back end I dunno.
there's lots of competign products in the data storage world, from client server products to file server products. In the client server products include SQL Server, MySQL, POSTGRES, ORACLE and so on. some of these are limited versions, some are expensive un limited versions (most have limited use freebies).in the file server world theres several out ther includign SQLLite, Access/JET, Filemaker and the one that comes with OIpen office to name a few.

As to which one is right for your fathers requirements I dunno. given my experience (my bias if you prefer) I suspect that your father will be will served with something like Access or possibly Filemaker. whether he needs the power of a server backend I don't know.

migrating the tables to whatever new data store should be OK. as to what tools depedns on what you choose to store the data in. as you have a copy of paradox the easiest route (assuming your chosen back end doesn't support native paradox interaction may be to go through something like CSV.

as to migrating the scripts and forms, not a cat in hells chance, you will have to create these in the selected front end.

bear in mind you have the choice in creating your new front end as to whether you use
a conventional development environment such as VB.NET, ASP.NET or wahtever
or a scripting language runnignon a server (the server could be the local machine) and use PHP, ASP.NET and so on
or a RAD tool such as Access or Filemaker.

bear in mind you do not have to use the inbuilt data storage mechanism in Access to use Access, its quite happy to talk to the outside world. however unless you are fully up to speed with server development in Access I wouldn't recommend using Access + a server for a first off project (unless you are prepared to dig deep into the internals of Access). whatever else people may say about Access, and a lot of people do say things about Access it has a very good report generator and can be very user friendly. however the user friendliness and RAD tend to take a back seat if you code an Access application to properly interact with a server product.

However its hard to give any useful advice as you don't really give a flavour of how big this application is, how many users, how secure must it be, what is the calibre and expertese of the developer.

Thanks very much for the quick response !
I have some experience with Access, and with SQL Server + LINQ (in .Net using C#).
I do believe that my best bet would be to port the data to SQL Server,
and then access it using ... well ... Access.
I understand I would have to 'recreate' the forms and reports in Access.
But what do I do about the scripts ?
What is their equivalent in Access to the scripts in Paradox/DOS ?

in terms of data - there are in the range of 100,000 rows in the tables,
some tables contain 10 fields, some contain 80 fields.

Security is no issue right now, as my father is the only one working on this currently.

So now that I have said that I would like to move the data to SQL Server
(the free edition), and use Access to access it - how do I do it ?

I'll ditto everything that the other guy said, with one exception.. in general, I tell everyone to get away from the old platform, too.. but if it's just your dad's data, and it's just for your dad, and there's nothing complicated about it, there's no real reason to move it.. you'll just make his life more complicated..

if and when it needs to be moved, every modern platform will take the data, easily.. everything else (forms, reports, scripts) will have to be recreated from scratch..

just make sure he's always making backups!

Im not to sure what Paradox Scripts you are talking about. Access use VBA (Visual Basic for Applications) if required, and you can also use macros. many user of Access don't even realise there is a fairly powerful language underpinning Access that can be used in forms and reports.

if you are serious about developing in Access then I'd strongly recommend that you get the 'Access Developer Handbook' for your version of Access. get both books as the second one is more focussed on server back ends.

> Im not to sure what Paradox Scripts you are talking about.

then what is your basis for an "informed opinion" ??

the Paradox PAL programming language is much more powerful, and much simpler, than VB.. and does simple macro recording, too.. but alas, we're talking about the DOS version here (sigh)