Digitally signing, and user-level security upgrades?

[LauraB]

Hello. We have a database in Access 2000 file format that we have been using
in Access 2003, and we recently upgraded to using Access 2007, although our
database is still in the same old 2000 file format.

There are a couple of things I'd like to do:
1. Get rid of the security warnings when opening the database.
I was thinking about figuring out how to digitally sign the database. In
fact it looked easier to do in Access 2007, but as well it looked like I
could also use the 'put in trusted location feature'. My understanding is
that to do the latter I'd have to upgrade to the 2007 file format.

2. Potentially set up user-level security to the database.
We have been thinking about adding this, but I saw that this feature went
away for 2007. I would guess that if I haven't set this up yet, it wouldn't
be recommended to do this now? Especially since if I wanted it I couldn't
upgrade to the 2007 file format.
Minimally, it would be nice to have some users access the database with no
editing ability (but full access to read any data), and other users with full
admin/editing access. Is there another way to do this besides user-level
security?

Any tips on the easiest way to accomplish these goals, and what file format
to upgrade to is appreciated. There's a steep learning curve for these
security issues for someone who created a database over 5 years ago. Thx.

 

[LauraB]

OK, after research on my own I'll answer my own first question, and then
re-post any remaining questions.

In terms of getting rid of the security warnings it seems my options are:
* Signing up with an independent agency to be able to digitally sign my own
code. Expensive. Silly for me to do for a couple of macros I wrote 5 years
ago.
* With Access 2007 I can self-certify a file (And this can be done without
changing the file format-- I can stay in older format). Only problem is that
this works only when the database is used on one computer. Our office has
two computers that both use the database.
* Put in trusted location. I think this is our best option. Our office
only has two computers, and everyone needs passwords to get on the computers.
The database is in a shared folder, but if I trust only the database folder,
and not expose all the shared folders, I think this is a reasonable solution.
Also I found that this is a feature new to Access 2007, but does not require
changing the file format, so I can stay in 2000 or 2003 if I want to.