Low-cost databases?

The number of files is not a problem, except that the executable extracts all the files, by default, to your temp directory, and the large number of files, with no telltale names and, as it turns out, several subdirectories, can be impossible to identify in that mix. So, with the information I provided, anyone else downloading the executable file would have a clue, before extracting the files, that the temp folder might not be a good place for them.

I don't know how you can say the XP design web pages are not for the "'Fresh, Desirable, Colorful and Simple' crowd" since the "philosophy" page says that is the design philosophy of XP, and this is a visual design guide for XP. Maybe it was not for the aforementioned crowd because it was for the crowd that, though not yet on board with Microsoft's XP design philosophy, wanted to be?

anyone else downloading the executable file would have a clue

You can change the D/L location by simply entering a new path when prompted - and considering the content is designed for developers, it's a fair assumption that most developers recognise 'default.htm' as the proper starting point probably don't need shortcuts to find their way around their computers... but good points to raise!

Maybe it was not for the aforementioned crowd because it was for the crowd that, though not yet on board with Microsoft's XP design philosophy, wanted to be?

It's always frustrating to find otherwise excellent databases or other programs that are so full of GUI design faults they become worthless from a user perspective - we see these all the time, and 'download.com' is littered with the remains of some great developments that failed through lack of recognition of one simple fact... It doesn't matter how feature-packed, how conceptually well researched and designed a database is... if it fails the usability test it is highly unlikely to ever prove successful.

On moving a MS-Access DB from XP to Vista only two
PC-s of the five PC-s could connect to the DB at once.
After two unusal fixes, creating a c:\temp directory,
MS hotfix KB935366, failing; the third fix worked.
This was on the client machines updating the shortcut
to the database to include a path to the local PC’s
MS-Access exec file. i.e. the target would be
“c:\programs\microsoft\office11\msaccess.exe
h:\database.mdb”.

What will work best depends on whether you want to develop one or use one which already exists, and what you want to do with it.

In other words, keeping in mind the big picture and the long term, if you don't need anything terribly complicated, you might want to keep it simple.

If, for example, your database it's just for managing contacts or storing a small amount of data, some of the office software you might already have might do, such as Outlook (for contacts and activities related to them, plus some simple but flexible reporting) or excel (for lower numbers of records and low complexity of data.- ie: a flat file rather than relational database)

An advantage of going 'lower tech' where appropriate (don't jump down my neck here - there is definitely a place for access, sql and other databases, and I've been designing them for nonprofits for over a decade) is that your users will already know how to use it, and will (hopefully) require less training and support.

As well, again depending on your needs, sometimes your webmail system (such as horde) or other web platforms/applications you might already be using (such as webgui or yahoogroups) have built-in simple databases for storing basic data.

Sincerely,
Sophia Kelly
www.sophiakelly.ca

SQL Server Express Edition is free, and therefore might be worthy of serious consideration, too.

We used the Express Edition for about a year on one of our projects, and then made the move to the full version once the database got to over one gigabyte. The transition was nearly seamless. Even with nearly a million records in the database and as many as 30 concurrent users the performance was quite good.