Shoutbox

As far as I'm aware, it's not possible to open anything other than Access Databases with Access, though I could be wrong - I detest it.

Also, sorting usually takes place on-the-fly, ie, adding an ORDER BY clause into the SQL statement.

If you're considering completely re-writing the front end and dumping the PHP interface... maybe consider using Visual Basic .NET. PHP usually copes better with MySQL rather than MSSQL.