In the first half of 2005 I wrote a utility that could synchronize the ERP application I was working with at that time with Outlook. The users wanted the appointment data offline on their PDA’s (PocketPC’s), so I figured: if I download the data to Outlook, ActiveSync will automatically synchronize that to the PDA. And so it did.
The utility, far from finished but still very functional, was written in a trial edition of VS.NET 2003 and when the beta was there, I managed to get the code working in VS 2005 beta. Because I used the “full” version of VS, I assumed that the code would not work in the now free version of Visual Studio: VS Express. To my surpise, after converting from the 2003 to the 2005 version (conversion of the .sln file) I can compile and run the program. And when I define the proper ODBC-dsn on my system, it comes back with an error that the table or view I try to access does not exists. Which is correct, since I don’t have the ERP-data(base) at my disposal.
VS Express editions are not supposed to support remote databases, nor development for Office. What I now know is that things can be done, albeit it not via some wizardy-click-a-the-click approach. Hey, real programmers don’t use wizards 😉
Perhaps this utility has some future after all….