There may be someone here who understands the network admin and config
jargon, but that someone isn't me, and it seems to have been a mystery to
Jeff, also. If you can define an algorithm for determining the new address
of hyperlinked data depending on the old address, then you should be able to
automate the change.
My guess, however, is that, with 2000 Access DBs, you probably have a
significant number that are undocumented, and perhaps some that are
"unknown" to any current employee. That's a difficult situation -- I'd
probably describe it as something "that was allowed to get out of control
and is not going to be easy to regain control".
My suggestion:
(1) Identify those DBs that can be determined to be important and that are
used -- try to determine, on an individual basis, how you can convert the
links (I am not familiar with "dynamic hyperlink", in the context you
describe, so I just can't address that). With VBA code and queries, those
conversions and relocations should not be impossible, but they may also not
be trivially simple.
(2) Continue to keep the original servers and stores available, but not
accessible to the general user populace, and this may have to be until after
your year-end/year-beginning processing cycles.
(3) If no one has complained about not getting vital data, then you can
archive the ones you did not convert*; if someone complains, then you'll
have to dig in and try to determine the applicable database, and convert
that one, too.
* don't erase them, or make them totally inaccessible, because just
as surely as you do, in time, and on an urgent basis, some user
will need them, and you'll be the "bad guy who destroyed our
mission critical data".
It would be nice if there were an across-the-board, or generic, solution;
but my guess is that you are going to have to dig, delve, and resolve these
individually.
Larry Linson
Microsoft Office Access MVP
