Single User Database

[temporalis]

I'm working on converting a database from Access 97 to Access 2002, and
everything's gone smoothly until I got to security.

The original database was set up so that the database and front end
were in the same MDB (I know, this is bad, and eventually I'll convince
someone here that something should be done about it, but right now it's
critical to move this database from Access 97). Security was set up
using workgroups, and in Access 97, it only allowed one person into the
database at a time (if you were trying to access it and someone else
was already in the database, it would let you know and you couldn't
open it). However, now that I've got it all set up in Access 2002, it
doesn't bother with the security - multiple people can open the
database.

Would anyone be able to explain how I would set it up so that only a
single user can be in the database at a time?

Thank you,
- Kurtis Story

 

[Albert D.Kallal]

Would anyone be able to explain how I would set it up so that only a
single user can be in the database at a time?

The fact of security has NOTING to do with this feature. The default setting
likely was "exclusive". This setting works regardless of security..and have
NO relation to security...

you can find the option under

tools->options->advanced tab - >
default open mode

[] Exclusive
[] Shared

 

[temporalis]

My default open mode was already set to "Exclusive", and Default Record
Locking had been set to "All Records". I had already tried all
permutations and combinations thereof. None of these actually open the
database in Exclusive mode (at least, I'm able to open the database
from a networked computer without any problems). I realize that this
fix would at the very least be a temporary fix of my problem.

An issue I find with using "Open Exclusive" is that I don't want users
to even have the option of opening the database non-exclusively. If I
change the default open to "Exclusive", they can always change those
options (by selecting another default open method). Another problem I
find with open "Exclusive" is that it won't let the user know they're
not in the database exclusively until they try and save data. If
someone's using the front-end application, and they have entered all of
the data into a form, and suddenly they can't save it, it would be an
inconvenience.

I thought this could have been a security fix, but I could be mistaken.
The only thing that was changed to the database was its conversion,
and it's using an updated group file, yet this feature that worked fine
in Access 97 has stopped working in 2002. I'm new to using Access, and
am used to running everything from SQL, so please forgive me if my
problem is a simple fix.

Thanks for the help so far, Albert!
- Kurtis Story

 

[Albert D.Kallal]

Well, at least we are clear that security is not used for this purpose.

And, at least we are clear that this behavior did NOT change with regards to
a97, or a2002.

So, this means that something else is at a play here.

Perhaps a shortcut was used on the old system...and a /excl was used in the
startup?

You can set the Exclusive in the startup options.

If there was a "custom message", then perhaps a coding approach was
used..but, then I don't see why it would not work in a2002...

I thought this could have been a security fix, but I could be mistaken.

As mentioned..this is not really a secirty issue, and not really related to
secirty. The secirty system would not provide this feature.

I would check the startup (shortcut) used on the old system...as perahps
that changed. A typical shortcut would be:

"C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\OFFICE11\MSACCESS.EXE"
"c:\program files\RidesXP\RidesXP.mdb"
/wrkgrp "c:\Program Files\RidesXP\Rides.mdw"
/User "RidesAdmin" /pwd "password"
/excl

And, there is also the /ro option (read only)...

The above is for a2003..but just change office11 to office10 for 2002...

So, check the old shortcut. And, also look at the startup form in the new
system (it is not clear if the message was a custom message..or the standard
ms-access one - if custom..then obviously some code runs at startup to check
this).

 

[Temporalis]

Thanks for the help Albert!!

I figured it out. There's only one machine in the office with Access
97, and it had been explained to me by the users that it was locking
them out of Access if more than one person tried to get in. I don't
have direct access to that machine, so I never tested this. Today I
cornered one of the users and asked them to demonstrate exactly how it
worked, and he showed me - that you can't even gain access to the
machine if someone is logged into it. Looks like they weren't using
Access at all to do the exclusivity.

So I've set them up with a shortcut to the database, and hopefully
that'll be enough.

Thanks again!
- Kurtis Story