Please explain *.mdw

[mbox204]

Thank you in advance.

Could someone please explain the below in some level of detail, I have
broken down the line into segments.

"path to msaccess.exe" "path to mdb" /wrkgrp "path to secure mdw"

1. "path to msaccess.exe"
This I understand to be the path to where msaccess resides on my PC

2. "path to mdb" /wrkgrp
This I understand to be the path to where my access database resides.
What is the /wrkgrp for? Do you use this as is or replace with something
else like a workgroup name (i.e. /admin)

3. "path to secure mdw"
I understand this to also be a path to the system.mdw file. Can this be any
system.mdw file that is installed with Microsoft Access or must it be the
file created when the secured database was created?

The reason I ask these questions, the application I am currently working on
is no longer on the PC that it was developed on. This application resides
on a completely brand new PC and when I open the access file I get the error
message associated with a message as such:

"You do not have the necessary permission s to use the
'F:\Security\autobody.mdb. Have your system administor or
the person who created the object establish the appropriate permissions for
you."

The system administrator is not the person who created this application and
as such the person who did create the application has long been gone. This
application is an Access database file that was transferred to the new PC
which has Access 97 residing on it, as well as the Access 2002. Access 97
is installed onto this new machine only to run this application and now
cannot open it for some reason since it was transferred to the new machine.
The old machine was gutted, hard drive erased, etc, it and all content is
history.

File name of Access application is: autobody.mdb
The is nowhere to be found any file such as autobody.mdw, only system.mdw
and it is what was installed with the new PC when Access 97 and 2002 were
installed.

Am I out of luck on this one? Any advice or direction to information would
be welcome. To rewrite this application would cost a lot of money.

 

[Douglas J. Steele]

If security was applied to autobody.mdb (which seems to be the case), then
you need whatever mdw file was associated with the database when security
was applied. That could be system.mdw (although realistically that would, in
my opinion, have been a mistake on the part of whoever applied security to
the database).

 

[david epsom dot com dot au]

/wrkgrp is a command line option: it tells access that
the NEXT string is a workgroup:

/wrkgrp "path to secure mdw"

A WorkGroup file is a Security Database. It normally has
the extension .MDW, and in (english) Windows the file type
is:
"Microsoft Access Workgroup Information"

A security database contains a list of Users, and a list
of Groups, each with a coded ID number.

Your application has permissions (like 'open', 'run')
associated with those coded ID numbers. The only way
to use those coded ID numbers is with a security database
that will give you those coded ID numbers.

Normally, we use the default 'admin' ID, which is common
in ALL security databases. If your application database
doesn't accept that ID number then YOU NEED A SECURITY
DATABASE THAT WILL GIVE YOU A VALID id NUMBER.

(david)