Big Problem - Shortcut to DB.lnk

[Jaybird]

I have a serious problem and I need to get to the bottom of it... It looks
to me like someone has created a copy of our company's database and named it
'Shortcut to New Order Entry 2005 Current.lnk' The DB we should be using is
called 'New Order Entry 2005 Current' I need to know if anything I did could
have caused this to happen inadvertantly because this is a nomenclature that
I do not use and I certainly would not call a copy of the database
'Shortcut'.

The issue has come up because my boss does not like using shortcuts from the
desktop and he has been using a shortcut on the shared drive to get to the
database and update the data. I believe that he has confused the shortcut he
wants with this copy of the database. Now we have updating issues. We have
two copies of the database out there and I need to synch them up on the fly
and get everyone using the correct shortcuts. It will be a challenge because
some of the tables are using an autonumber field as the primary key. For
this reason, an simple append query won't do it.

There are possible suspects as to who could be responsible, but I need to
know if I could possibly be the culprit before I start pointing fingers.

Thanks in advance.

 

[Jerry Whittle]

How large is 'Shortcut to New Order Entry 2005 Current.lnk' ? I'm betting
that it's 1K in size because it's a link and not actually a database.

If so the next question is what is the link pointing to? Right click on the
file in question and go down to Properties. Go to the Shortcut tab and see
what the Target says. This should be the database which is opened by the
shortcut.

Now if it's actually a database file, somebody went through a lot of trouble
to get a .lnk file to open up Access. Actually all shortcuts on that computer
may well try to open up as Access now.

 

[Jaybird]

Jerry, thanks for the quick response! The file I indicated is indeed a copy
of the database. It's 102,000 KB in size! This is roughly equivalent to the
size of the original mdb when I got here this morning, but they've been
updating the wrong DB all morning! I know that I have security and access
issues, but am really limited by the amount of control that I have over the
database. What possible reason could somebody have for creating such a file?
I have never used .lnk files as I don't know enough about them. All I know
is that there are now two versions of the database out there, and it's only a
matter of time before this causes serious issues.

 

[Ron2006]

Since you have the application on a network drive, why are they not
split. One for the tables and one for the application part.

If you do it that way, then

if someone somehow changes the tables file name then NONE of the
applications will work.
If they make a copy of the tables file - NONE of the applications will
point to the copy of the tables, so your data is "safe".
If they change the application file name then others should not work
because they SHOULD have the application on their own hard drive and
be executing from that.
If they make a copy of that application file name then they would have
an old version IF you made changes. If that happens more frequently
than you want then you could put in some code to stop that.

My advise is SPLIT the application as soon as possible and have users
executing from their own harddrive NOT the network drive.

Ron

 

[Jaybird]

The new database was created on Saturday morning. I was here at that time,
but can't think of any way that I could have done this. If it was me, I
would really like to know HOW so that I can NOT do it again!

 

[Jaybird]

Thanks Ron. Yes, splitting the database and putting security measures in
place is my plan. However, I'm having some control issues over the database.
My boss is not convinced that I can do this without causing problems. I
have split the database in a virtual environment with no problems, but
security is the real issue as I don't believe that the networking is done
properly. Everyone bypasses the network login. Everyone has administrator
privileges, we use a third party for maintaining our network, and no one
seems to know everything that's going on.

 

[John W. Vinson]

Thanks Ron. Yes, splitting the database and putting security measures in
place is my plan. However, I'm having some control issues over the database.
My boss is not convinced that I can do this without causing problems. I
have split the database in a virtual environment with no problems, but
security is the real issue as I don't believe that the networking is done
properly. Everyone bypasses the network login. Everyone has administrator
privileges, we use a third party for maintaining our network, and no one
seems to know everything that's going on.

Then you have a MUCH STRONGER incentive to split.

If you split the database, *you* have control over the backend. You can
implement Access workgroup security, independent of the network logins, and
control how users can get at the data.

John W. Vinson [MVP]

 

[david]

Possibly someone COPIED the database, and then SELECTED a
link as the file name to copy to. Possibly while not showing file extensions
in explorer, so the real file name is now actually
"Shortcut to New Order Entry 2005 Current.lnk.mdb"

(david)

 

[Jaybird]

I agree. If only I were king...
--
Why are you asking me? I dont know what Im doing!

Jaybird

 

[Jaybird]

Thanks for the response. I still don't know what happened, but the time the
copied database was created was while I was here. I don't think anyone else
could have, or would have done it. My other suspects have been eliminated.
--
Why are you asking me? I dont know what Im doing!

Jaybird

Possibly someone COPIED the database, and then SELECTED a
link as the file name to copy to. Possibly while not showing file extensions
in explorer, so the real file name is now actually
"Shortcut to New Order Entry 2005 Current.lnk.mdb"

(david)