locking and protection (access 2003)

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hi all,

I

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You say that 4 people use your db. The following suggestions are based on you already having split your database into front end (forms, queries, reports, code) and back end (data). If you haven’t, there’s precious little you can do.

For the front end, always convert your ‘development’ MDB into a ‘distributed’ MDE taking care to keep a copy as the MDE has all the code stripped out and can’t be converted back. Before converting to an MDE go into Tools>Startup and stop all the options shown plus the one under Advanced. You can also give the MDE a cut-down Menu bar if you wish. Distributing MDE dbs makes it very hard for anyone to get at your work.

As you say, he probably has a copy already. A possible way to prevent him getting a more up-to-date copy than he currently has is to change the name of one of the tables in the back end db, change the link in the front end db, make a fresh front end MDE and distribute it making sure to remove any old copies of the front end you can find. Any attempt to use an old front end db with a newer back end will fail, and since he will have copied a newer back end over the old one he will be scuppered.

Note, however, that if he has a copy of the data he could still extract all the info from it if he wants, albeit could be difficult. The only way to avoid this would be implementing full workgroup security. I can’t help you with this, and it probably wouldn’t help at this stage.

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You say that 4 people use your db. The following suggestions are based on you already having split your database into front end (forms, queries, reports, code) and back end (data). If you haven’t, there’s precious little you can do.

For the front end, always convert your ‘development’ MDB into a ‘distributed’ MDE taking care to keep a copy as the MDE has all the code stripped out and can’t be converted back. Before converting to an MDE go into Tools>Startup and stop all the options shown plus the one under Advanced. You can also give the MDE a cut-down Menu bar if you wish. Distributing MDE dbs makes it very hard for anyone to get at your work.

As you say, he probably has a copy already. A possible way to prevent him getting a more up-to-date copy than he currently has is to change the name of one of the tables in the back end db, change the link in the front end db, make a fresh front end MDE and distribute it making sure to remove any old copies of the front end you can find. Any attempt to use an old front end db with a newer back end will fail, and since he will have copied a newer back end over the old one he will be scuppered.

Note, however, that if he has a copy of the data he could still extract all the info from it if he wants, albeit could be difficult. The only way to avoid this would be implementing full workgroup security. I can’t help you with this, and it probably wouldn’t help at this stage.

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As David has indicated, it may well be too late if he has already taken a copy of the database. But in any event if he’s pushing hard for you to finish some things, you may still be in luck. For one thing, if you haven’t split the database already, be sure and do so ASAP. In doing that, you may want to move MDE copies of your front-end to the local workstations, and keep the back-end on a server, but you might want to move it to a different folder. I would also lock down the front-end so it isn’t easy to get to the tables and see the link info in the front-end. Finally, I would activate security ASAP as well – all that is involved initially is to give the Admin user a password, and then creating user accounts for each of the users. That doesn’t really secure the database, but it’s a start and gives the impression that you are tightening things up. I would deploy all those things at the time you implement the features he is pushing for.

If these concepts are things you aren’t really comfortable with, you might want to look at a recent article co-authored by Charlotte in the October issue of Access VB SQL Advisor magazine http://accessvbsql.advisor.com/doc/14584%5B/url%5D, and you might also want to review a couple of pages on our web site – Database Splitting Tutorial and User Security Tutorial. Another excellent resource is Jack MacDonald’s User Security paper. Hope this helps – if you have specific questions as you work, please post again and we’ll do our best to assist you.

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David, Wendell thanks!

I am going to look into it this weekend. your are right with the fact that I am not very familiar with spliting a Db in frontend an back end. but so far I’ve managed to do pretty cool things in access so ill see how far I’ll get.

Diederik

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David, Wendell thanks!

I am going to look into it this weekend. your are right with the fact that I am not very familiar with spliting a Db in frontend an back end. but so far I’ve managed to do pretty cool things in access so ill see how far I’ll get.

Diederik

Reply | Quote

As David has indicated, it may well be too late if he has already taken a copy of the database. But in any event if he’s pushing hard for you to finish some things, you may still be in luck. For one thing, if you haven’t split the database already, be sure and do so ASAP. In doing that, you may want to move MDE copies of your front-end to the local workstations, and keep the back-end on a server, but you might want to move it to a different folder. I would also lock down the front-end so it isn’t easy to get to the tables and see the link info in the front-end. Finally, I would activate security ASAP as well – all that is involved initially is to give the Admin user a password, and then creating user accounts for each of the users. That doesn’t really secure the database, but it’s a start and gives the impression that you are tightening things up. I would deploy all those things at the time you implement the features he is pushing for.

If these concepts are things you aren’t really comfortable with, you might want to look at a recent article co-authored by Charlotte in the October issue of Access VB SQL Advisor magazine http://accessvbsql.advisor.com/doc/14584%5B/url%5D, and you might also want to review a couple of pages on our web site – Database Splitting Tutorial and User Security Tutorial. Another excellent resource is Jack MacDonald’s User Security paper. Hope this helps – if you have specific questions as you work, please post again and we’ll do our best to assist you.

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