So I think I found a way that will allow us to continue to retrieve data from our existing Pocket Access databases.
The basic idea I had was to build a simple application in .Net CF 1.0 (2.0 has installation issues on older devices) that would read the Pocket access tables and copy them to a different format that's easy to sync with the desktop even if you have a newer device/Activesync.
The algorithm would be as simple as:
1. Connect to database(cdb)
2. for each table in database select all records(Select * from table)
3. Append the whole selection to the new format database
Here's an example
http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms837914.aspx
It uses the ADOCE 3.1 library from
http://inthehand.com/files/folders/legacy/default.aspx
It looks fairly simple, I was thinking of including it as another component of my data backup tool that I've been developing. I'll post my .Net code when I get a chance. The big question of course is what format should we convert the data to. I still have no idea of what it takes to connect SQL server CE to the desktop and if that relies on any Activesync magic which I would like to avoid. Briefly looking around it doesn't seem that easy to use SQL Server CE with anything other than SQL Server, for which I did find SQL Server compact edition, but that requires the development of a front-end, can't use Access.
Preferably the format would lend itself to being sync or file copied and synced/imported from the desktop machine at a later time.
What a pain,
Alex
