Northwind 2
By Richard Rost

3 years ago

Northwind Traders v2 Template Now Available!

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I am very happy to announce that the Microsoft Access Northwind Traders version 2.0 template is now available. You can download it directly from inside Access in the Templates section.

There are two versions available: the Starter Edition and the Developer Edition. The original Northwind database is how I learned to build databases with Microsoft Access, and I highly recommend it as a fantastic example of how a professional database should be built.

Links

Starter Docs: https://tinyurl.com/2kdfmzz8
Developer Docs: https://tinyurl.com/2gqkgueo
Official Release Announcement: https://tinyurl.com/2eujd56r
Access Forever Release Info: https://tinyurl.com/2fyepl24
DAAUG Release Video: https://youtube.com/watch?v=i4mQ_7tj_gk

Comments for Northwind 2

Age	Subject	From
3 years	Northwind 2.2	Alex Hedley
3 months	Northwind	Peter Yates
3 years	Thisll be good	Dan Jackson
3 years	Use Northwind	Gary Becker
3 years	Northwind	Sandra Truax
3 years	Advanced UI in Northwind	Kevin Yip
3 years	I cant believe they did this	Gary James

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Intro

In this video, I talk about the release of the new Northwind Traders 2.0 template for Microsoft Access. I explain the difference between the starter and developer editions, show you how to find and download the templates in Access 2016 or later, and discuss some of the improvements and learning opportunities the templates offer. You'll also hear tips about using the Northwind database to learn Access and VBA, plus some thoughts on its features, forms, navigation, and help resources.

Transcript

Hey everyone, this is Richard Rost with accesslearningzone.com. I just wanted to take a quick minute to let everyone know that the Northwind Traders 2.0 template has finally been released.

If you are not familiar with it, Northwind Traders is a database that has been with Access since the early days. In fact, the original 1.0 version was something that I personally used to learn a lot about Access back in the day. Back in the day was like 1994 or 1995. Northwind, plus a copy of the Access Bible at the time, is how I learned Access by reading that book and by tearing apart that database.

If you want to learn more about what goes on under the hood in Access, obviously you want to watch my videos, but also get a copy of the Northwind Traders template. There are two versions of the template available. There is a starter edition for people who are just learning Access and want to see what features are available and what Access can do, to get a good idea for a starter Access database. Then there is a developer edition which has a lot more features in it and includes a lot of VBA code you can go through.

That is one of the ways that I personally learned how to program in VBA, by looking at all the VBA in the Northwind database originally, the macros, and all the tables, forms, relationships, and all that stuff.

How do you get a copy of either of these templates? When you start Access up, do not open a database, just start the application. You should see it right there. They pop up right for me.

If they do not show up on this menu for you, then either you are running a version of Access earlier than 2016 (it is for 2016 and later - if you have 2013 or earlier, it is time to upgrade), or I have heard from different forums that some of the foreign language versions do not show it, so you might have to switch to English in order to see these.

If you do not see them, you can also try clicking on More Templates and searching here for Northwind (one word) and see if it pops up. There it is for me. There is the legacy one, the old one. You can try that one too. The old one had a lot of what I would consider rookie mistakes in it - it has spaces in the field names, things like that, and a lot of those types of things have been fixed in the new version, which is very good.

Pick whichever one you want to play with. If you are a beginner, if you are an absolute beginner, if you are in my beginner lessons, then pick the starter edition. If you are a developer, if you have been using VBA for a while, you might want to get the developer edition and poke around through it. Just click on it.

Click where you want it to go. I am going to drop it on my desktop. I will go to Desktop and change this to NW1. Hit OK. Hit Create. You will see "Preparing the template." It is downloading the components and building everything for you - the tables, the queries, all that stuff.

Then you get "Welcome to the Northwind Starter Edition." These are not meant to be databases that you will use in a real life production setting. You can use them as a jump-off point to start your database, but these are designed to showcase Access's features. They are not really for running your business. Although these templates are better than a lot of other databases I have seen out there that are supposed to be for running businesses, these are actually built by Access professionals, so you know they are built right.

They do have some videos, and they strongly recommend you watch their starter videos. I am not going to take the time now to go through a lot of the features in here because their videos already do a really good job of that, so go watch the videos. They promise it will be well worth it, and it is. I have watched most of them, so check them out.

They have a really nice help system online too. Just click Continue. Put your name in. What am I? Guru Extraordinaire (who cannot spell "Extraordinaire"). Hit "Add Me." This is just stored in your database. This does not go anywhere. This database is not connected to anything online. They are basically setting you up a user account.

If you follow my classes at all, I do not use the tabbed interface with tabs across the top. I like the windows, but whatever you like, it is just a matter of style preference. They use the tab document interface, and it is pretty cool. You can click on the IDs over here to open up individual records. Their forms are very well designed, nice and clean with a good interface.

There is lots of help throughout. You can click on the little "i" button over there to take you to the web and open up their help interface. There is lots of stuff you can read in here.

Good use of combo boxes and all kinds of good stuff is in here. I am going to be going through some of the additional features in future videos. They have nice groupings over here in the navigation pane.

I personally think the navigation pane is for you, the developer. I never let my end users see this, but it is a great tool for you. Like I said before, there is the starter version and there is a developer version. I downloaded this one earlier too, and you can see there is a lot more stuff in here - additional groups and some other linked tables type stuff, and there is more VBA code in this one.

If you are still learning Access, or even if you are an experienced developer and want to see what other professional developers put in their projects, download these templates, play with them, check them out, and tear them apart to learn from them.

In fact, in going through the developer one myself, I already picked up one tip that I did not know before - just a different way of doing something. I thought, "Wow, that is really nifty." I will be showing you what that is in a future video.

I am going to include links down below to some other articles, release announcements, their documentation, and a couple of the videos they have already made. Check all those resources out too if you want to learn more about this.

If you want to see me make more tutorials on how to use this and what features are in it, post a comment down below. Let me know; if enough of you are interested, I will start tearing Northwind apart, and we will go through it together.

I want to give a special thanks to the entire Northwind 2 developer team and the team leader, Tom Vanstippa, for giving me a sneak preview a few weeks ago before it was released. Do not tell anybody. It is an MVP perk.

Like I said, I spent a ton of time back in the 90s tearing apart the original. This is a fantastic resource for all of you who are just learning Access or are working with Access and want to see an example of a really well-built professional database.

Check it out, download it, and tell those guys that I sent you. We will see you next time. Live long and prosper, my friends.

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Summary

Today's video from Access Learning Zone is an announcement that the Northwind Traders 2.0 template is now available. For those who have not heard of it before, Northwind Traders is a sample database that has been included with Microsoft Access for decades. I remember using the original version, back in the mid-1990s, as one of my main resources for learning Access. Between Northwind and the Access Bible, I was able to pick apart how Access works by studying the tables, forms, macros, and code in the template.

If you want a deeper understanding of how Access functions under the surface, watching my videos is a great place to start, but I also strongly recommend getting a copy of the Northwind Traders template. There are two versions available now: the starter edition for people who are new to Access and want to see what you can do with it, and a developer edition, which includes many more features and a lot of VBA code for more advanced study.

Examining the VBA and the database design in Northwind was one of the main ways I taught myself programming in Access. It is a solid example of how tables, forms, relationships, and supporting code should be structured.

To access these templates, just launch Access and look in the screen you see before choosing or opening a database. Usually, the Northwind template options will show up there automatically. If you do not see them, it might be due to using an older version of Access—Northwind Traders 2.0 is available only in Access 2016 and newer. Some regional editions or non-English language versions of Access might not display the templates either, so switching to English can help. Alternatively, select More Templates and use the search function to look for Northwind as one word. This search should reveal both the new and old versions. While the legacy version is still available, it does have some beginner mistakes in its design, like spaces in field names. Most of these have been corrected in the new edition, so I highly recommend using the updated version.

Decide which template best matches your experience. The starter edition is perfect if you are in my beginner lessons or just starting out, whereas the developer edition is well suited to those already familiar with VBA and Access who want to explore more advanced techniques and code. After selecting one, save it where you want, and Access will do the work of downloading and preparing the database.

Keep in mind, these are demonstration templates meant to showcase Access features. They are not designed for real-world production use, but they make excellent starting points for learning or launching your database projects. In fact, they are better than many other prebuilt databases I have seen. Because these are made by Access professionals, you know the code and design are solid.

When you first open the template, you will be greeted by an introduction and encouraged to watch some accompanying video tutorials. I recommend you do so, since those videos cover the template's features in detail. There's also a helpful online documentation system for additional support.

You will be prompted to enter your name and create a user account, but this information is just stored in your copy of the database and is not sent to the internet. The template uses the Tabbed Documents interface, which is a stylistic choice I do not usually prefer, but it works well and provides a clean, easy-to-navigate system. The forms are well-designed and user-friendly.

Developers will appreciate the navigation pane, which allows you to see how things are structured behind the scenes. In the developer version, you will find more advanced features, like additional navigation groups, linked tables, and expanded VBA code to study.

I encourage everyone interested in learning Access—from beginners to experienced developers—to download these templates, experiment with them, and take them apart to learn how everything fits together. Even with my years of experience, I have already picked up a new tip just by reviewing the developer version, which I plan to share with you in a future lesson.

If you are interested in more tutorials focusing on using the Northwind Traders 2.0 template and its features, let me know in the comments. If there is enough demand, I will create detailed walkthroughs so we can explore it together.

A big thank you goes to the Northwind 2 developer team and to Tom Vanstippa, the team leader, who let me preview the template before its official release.

Whether you are just starting out or want to see an example of a professionally built Access database, Northwind Traders 2.0 is a fantastic resource. Download it and give it a try.

You can find a complete video tutorial with step-by-step instructions on everything discussed here on my website at the link below. Live long and prosper, my friends.

Topic List

This is a video announcement describing the release of the Northwind Traders 2.0 template for Microsoft Access, including an overview of what the template is, how to obtain it, and its different versions for beginners and developers.