Well, word, excel, and ms-access all have worked this way for about 10,
perhaps 15 years now. So, it is not like this type of interface will confuse
your users!!! After all, ms-access is part of office, and works the same
way as word, and excel (likely the two most popular software applications on
the planet).
Further, to hide the gray background, you could always maximize your form
anyway. So, office has been this way for a long time, and users have come to
expect this.
In a2007, you can choose between the current forms, or you can use the new
"default" mode in which forms shown in tabbed interface. So, you don't get
the gray background, but a ribbon menu, and a tabbed interface. It is quite
nice.
Last, but not least, for my applications, I always built a menu bar, and
thus no code or "special" tricks was needed to hide the ms-access interface.
Take a look at the following screen shots:
http://www.members.shaw.ca/AlbertKallal/Articles/UseAbility/UserFriendly.htm
You most certainly can, and should hide all of the ms-access interface. The
options to complete hide and keep people out of the ms-access interface can
easily be done using the tools->start-up options. Using those options allows
you to complete hide the ms-access interface (tool bars, database window
etc). Also, using these options means you do not have to bother setting up
security.
Try downloading and running the 3rd example at my following web site that
shows a hidden ms-access interface, and NO CODE is required to do
this....but just some settings in the start-up.
Check out:
http://www.members.shaw.ca/AlbertKallal/msaccess/DownLoad.htm
After you try the application, you can exit, and then re-load the
application, but hold down the shift key to by-pass the start-up options. If
want, you can even disable the shift key by pass. I have a sample mdb file
that will let you "set" the shift key bypass on any application you want.
You can get this at:
http://www.members.shaw.ca/AlbertKallal/msaccess/msaccess.html