Russell Sinclair          Bronze Collection   
 
I like to repair and compact my databases regularly. This can be done easily in Access, or by creating a shortcut for each database, but neither option is quick enough for me.

The easier way to do this is using my Compacting Tool, the Workbench for MS Access.  It will also build the shortcuts for these commands for you and it will only compact the database when no-one is using it
Garry Robinson
 

 
 
The solution? Add Repair and Compact to the right-click menu in Explorer. Here's how to do it:
 
1. Open Explorer and choose Options from the View menu.
 
2. Select the File Types tab.
 
3. Find the item for Microsoft Access Database and click on Edit.
 
4. Under Actions, choose New.
 
5. Name the Action "Repair and Compact" (don't use &).
 
6. In the Application Used to Perform Action field, type in the full path for Access or use Browse to locate it (if it's in a directory that uses long filenames, make sure you surround the name with quotes).
 
You should now have the full path for Access. Add the following text (including quotes and spaces between each part):
 

 
 
Your text should now appear as
 

 
Close out each dialog box.
 
From this point on, if you right-click on any Access database, you should see the Repair and Compact action as a choice on the pop-up menu.