Regarding your question about linked tables, and whether they can be written to, absolutely yes. We have a number of systems deployed that used linked tables that are updateable. In fact, we also link to views which are updateable. ODBC linked tables are the preferred method for using an Access front-end to SQL Server tables per Microsoft. If you are seeing the tables as read-only, chances are your userID in SQL Server doesn't have permissions to edit or append data.

And regarding the shared front-end, that is generally considered dangerous. We always deploy the front-end to the user PC - that way if the front-end is somehow corrupted, we can simply replace the one on the PC. Otherwise, you have to get everyone out of the system so you can repair whatever has gone wrong. We learned that the hard way with some 80 PCs trying to share a front-end. It was a disaster, and we quickly changed to copying the front-end to the PC. That was in 1994. I think you will find that concept in nearly every best practice - if you want a bit more detail take a look at http://www.access-experts.com/default.aspx?selection=TutorialSplitDB&sm=18

Wendell

Evergreen, CO