Something has to be running. If it's not your database, then you'll need
some other program running that can read your database file to get the
information. There is no way to have things just popup on their own when
they aren't in use.

As Wayne says, you can't do this without running a program to do it.

If you use Outlook (as opposed to Outlook Express), the simplest thing
might be just to add a repeating appointment for each birthday, with a
reminder a few days beforehand. To do this under program control from
the database, try looking at www.outlookcode.com or www.slipstick.com.

Witout Outlook, one approach would be to create a script (in VBS or
another scripting language) that queries the database and pops up the
message you need. You could then set this script to run as you log in
(1) or as a scheduled task that runs daily (2).

Another approach (assuming that you're sure to open the database at
least once a month) would be to add VBA code that runs when the database
opens. This would query the database for forthcoming birthdays and
create a scheduled task for each of them (to run just once, however far
beforehand you want). (3)

1) e.g. by including a shortcut to it in your Program Files\Startup
folder.

2) Control Panel|Scheduled Tasks.

3) See the recent thread "Re: How to schedule an access application by
code in Access 2000/2002" in this group for information on creating
scheduled tasks under program control.

--
John Nurick [Microsoft Access MVP]

Please respond in the newgroup and not by email.

It's easy in VBS:

' ***** start of script *****
Option Explicit

' VBS Script to look up upcoming birthday

Const pathMDBFile = "c:\temp\birthdays.mdb"
Const qdfBirthdaysDue = "BirthdaysDue"

' dao constants
Const dbOpenSnapshot = 4
Const dbForwardOnly = 8

Dim dbe, db, ss ' as DBEngine, as Database, as Recordset
Dim displayText ' as string

' create a db engine
Set dbe = CreateObject("DAO.DBEngine.36")

' open the database readonly
Set db = dbe.OpenDatabase(pathMDBFile, False, True)
   
' get a snapshot of the data
set ss = db.OpenRecordset(qdfBirthdaysDue, dbOpenSnapshot, dbForwardOnly)

' run through any records that may have been returned
Do While Not ss.EOF

 ' create a simple string, just concatenate the names
 ' blank lines are ugly
 If Len(displayText)>0 Then displayText = displayText + vbNewLine
 displayText = displayText & ss.Fields(0).Value

 ' next record
 ss.MoveNext
 
Loop

' an empty MsgBox is so unhelpful: use some default text instead!
If Len(displayText) = 0 Then displayText = "No birthdays due"

' tell the user
WScript.Echo displayText

' arrange for a neat closedown
ss.Close
db.Close

' ***** End of script *****

If you save the script to a .vbs file, then you can place a link to it in
your Programs/ StartUp menu and it will display every time you start your
PC. An alternative would be to use the Task Scheduler.

By the way, the text of the "BirthdaysDue" query is as follows:

SELECT FName & " " & LName AS FullName

FROM People

WHERE DATESERIAL(
 YEAR(DATE()) + IIF(
   DATESERIAL(YEAR(DATE()),MONTH(BirthDt),DAY(BirthDt))>=DATE(),0,1),
 MONTH(BirthDt),
 DAY(BirthDt)
 ) - DATE()  < 21

ORDER BY DATESERIAL(
 YEAR(DATE()) + IIF(
   DATESERIAL(YEAR(DATE()),MONTH(BirthDt),DAY(BirthDt))>=DATE(),0,1),
 MONTH(BirthDt),
 DAY(BirthDt));

It just calculates the date of the next birthday given a date of birth in
the field BirthDt, and selects those where it is less than 21 days away.

Hope that helps

Tim F