how many users can open a connection to Microsoft Access?

Question

how many users can open a connection to Microsoft Access database simultaneously ? I am using asp.net 4.0 to write my application.

<add name="E_ShopAccessConnectionString" connectionString="Provider=Microsoft.Jet.OLEDB.4.0;Data Source=|DataDirectory|\report.mdb;Persist Security Info=True" providerName="System.Data.OleDb"/>

Answer 1

The Access database has a limit of 256 connections, but there is a limit of 64 connections per process in the database drivers, and as IIS is a single process your limit is 64.

If you are careful to close your connections, commands and data readers properly, this is usually enough for plenty of users. Each visitor doesn't need a connection of their own.

You are likely to run into other limitations before you run out of connections. If you have many visitors, you will find that the Access database is simply not fast enough, and you need a more advanced database system.

If you are running out of connections, that is most likely because you are not closing database objects properly, so that they are still keeping the database connection alive until they are garbage collected.