You want Office XP Developer, but you'll probably have a hard time finding
it, as Microsoft stopped selling it when Office 2003 came out.

One possibility is to check out sites that specialize in old software
products, such as http://www.emsps.com/oldtools/ or
http://recycledsoftware.com/

Another is to look at someplace like eBay to see whether anyone's trying to
sell their old versions (Note, though, that products purchased this way
aren't always legal...)

Check what Tony Toews has at
http://www.granite.ab.ca/access/developereditionfaq.htm for additional
information.

There is only one way to distribute a "runtime access", and that's with the
appropriate Access Developers Version which licenses "Runtime Access". As Doug
says, Access XP Developer is hard to get hold of nowadays, but Microsoft
certainly have it and may assist you if they're so inclined (with certain
"bulk licenses", they have in fact committed to supply retrogrades)

However, A2002 is obsolete and will become more so with time. Even A2003 is
about to become obsolete. If you don't have existing customers to support (you
obviously say you don't), then you might be better to develop in what is the
latest at the time (which changes approx every 2yrs), or alternatively keep
abreast of compatibility issues. There is no single resource I know of to do
that.

The only way I have heard of (ie the nearest), to "make them self install", is
www.sagekey.com or possibly installertogo or possibly other 3rd-party
installers. I personally use the Microsoft PDW and suffer accordingly. I mean
suffer...

If you just have some Access database, AND the client already has MS-Access
via their own means, then of course you need none of this crap. Except for
"installers" which may make the installation go much more easily on you...

In almost all cases I can think of, you still need Office Developer (for a
license to on-distribute)
Chris