Welcome To The Access Unlimited Newsletter - Edition 66   
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In this newsletter  | Reading Emails With VBA | Access 2007 - Workgroup Security Is On The Way Out | Reading An MDB Database in Outlook | Good reading links

Access Unlimited is an email newsletter that provides Tips, Tricks and Techniques for skilled Microsoft Access users and people working in related software disciplines.

Produced by Garry Robinson (known below as "Ed") from Sydney, Australia.

Reading Emails With VBA  (and automatically sending out replies)

 

Access 2007 - Workgroup Security Is On The Way Out

The beta 1 version of Office 12 is rolling along and it looks like it will be called Office 2007. More here and here. Late last week, Microsoft gave the Beta 1 testers permission to discuss the features of what is in the next version of Office. Here is one depreciated feature that you may be interested in.

In the next version of Access, the much cursed, the difficult to understand but quite detailed security system that is known as User Level Security (workgroup security) is not going to be supported by the next version of the Microsoft Jet engine. The way that it is going to be phased out is as follows.

Access will support Access 2000-2003 databases (mdb, mde, and mda) in a similar manner to what you are used to.

If you or your users upgrades your databases to a new file format called a ACEDB format, workgroup security will not be supported. This means in reality that you will then need to rely on personal protection systems for your security. If you are a reader of my book on Access protection and security, this means that you will only be able to draw on Chapters 1-6 and Chapter 12 for information if your database gets upgraded to the ACEDB format.

The good news though is that you have removed ownership from the Admin account for any object in the database, your users will need Administrator workgroup accounts and passwords to upgrade the database to the ACEDB format and you will be left with managing the MDB in much the same manner. In this situation Chapters 7, 8, 10 do apply and arguably are more important. Of course when Access 2009/2010 rocks along, this may change and you may be forced to upgrade. Of course the new features in Access at this time may also encourage you to upgrade.

To counteract the developer protests on removing workgroup security, Microsoft have beefed up the database password so that it is not stored in the database and invented a way that macro security warnings can be turned off if a database is stored in nominated folder.

Please sign up for Beta 2 if you feel that this depreciated feature is going to affect your database going forward. Remember if you do so, please use a spare computer or an empty boot operating system for your testing. As I am a Beta 1 participant, I cannot make my views on this depreciated feature topic known.

To view the chapters in my book, head to read the table of contents in PDF format or head to a page describing the book at vb123.com.

Read Garry's MSDN article on security in Access 2007

 

Access Unlimited Business Links

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Click here to view the latest vb123 links and news feeds as HTML 

 

Access Unlimited Business Subscription If you use Access Unlimited to help you with your business, support us by becoming a business subscriber.  Click here to subscribe At the end of the month of February, a lucky business subscriber of the Access Unlimited Newsletter will win a copy of my book on protecting and securing your Access database. At the moment your chances of winning are pretty good :) Last edition, Richard from Missouri in the USA won "a book by Grover Park George which is aimed at novice Access users. Find out more about the book at Amazon Last edition, George from New Zealand won a prize of one years free membership of the Database Developer Group. Read more at http://www.programmingmsaccess.com/ Note: You will receive additional content with your subscription unavailable to the free signups. Also congratulations to Nick and Mike from the UK Users group who won prizes of the Workbench and Toolbox at the recent users conference.

 

Our VB123 Database Repair Service

If you have trouble with your database and cannot compact and repair it, why not try our database repair service.

http://www.vb123.com/fixaccess
 

How To Advertise on VB123.com

One way to ensure that your product is advertised to an audience that loves Access content is to advertise with vb123.com. The easy way to do this and remain anonymous is to use Google as follows.

"Go to the bottom Left Hand Side of any page of vb123.com and you will see a list of advertisements small link (advertise on this site). This will allow you to target our site.

Reading An MDB Database When It Is Emailed to an Outlook Client

Andrew Wrigley, an Access Unlimited MVP :-) writes

The following url shows how to deal with the issue of not being able to read an Access MDB when it is emailed without compression. Thankfully Access 2007 ACEDB files are going to be treated like Word and Excel files and will not fall into this bad attachment category for Outlook 2007.

http://www.slipstick.com/outlook/esecup/getexe.htm

A Note From a Reader

"But we WANT them to zip them up, to reduce the size!"

When I get a new client, they generally make this mistake first up. I correct them later rather than lecture them at the beginning. At least now I can read the file when it comes through.  I guess it comes naturally from years of emailing Excel and Word without zipping.

GOOD READING

Introduction to Data Mining (1hr Video)
http://www.ftponline.com/channels/net/reports/vslivesf/2006/MacLennan/

Multi user login in ASP using an Access database
http://www.asp101.com/articles/rahul/multiuserlogin/default.asp

Having trouble switching from ODBC to OLE DB for
your Access database queries? Getting weird and
unhelpful errors? This little [bracket] tip might just be the solution.
http://nl.internet.com/ct.html?rtr=on&s=1,25vb,1,jvch,d0ks,39gr,amjy

An interesting document on Code Signing
http://www.diagramantics.com/v11dsp/notes2/signcode/note_signcode.htm

Microsoft Dynamics, well you read and work it all out. http://www.microsoft.com/BusinessSolutions/dynamics.mspx

Encryption article in vb.net
http://msdn.microsoft.com/msdnmag/issues/06/01/SecurityBriefs/default.aspx

Page on Website design
http://www.netmechanic.com/news/webmaster-resources.htm

How to change image size in Frontpage
http://www.netmechanic.com/news/vol3/beginner_no15.htm

Interesting product to keep your addresses online
http://www.plaxo.com/products

A page of vb.net, SQL Server and VBA script samples from Rick Dobson
http://www.programmingmsaccess.com/Samples/VBAProcs/vba_code_sample_menu.htm

How to detect the status of the SQL Server Express service or start the SQL Server Express service by using Visual Basic
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb%3ben-us%3b912426

How To: Dismiss a Dialog Box Displayed by an Office App with VB.NET.
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb%3ben-us%3b307292

Check out this train, makes the double deckers in Sydney look pretty ordinary
http://fratkin.com/travel/japan03/show.php?image=IMG_1437.JPG

WRAPPING THIS EDITION UP

Since the start of the year I have been working with a large international firm that has a total lock down policy for installing software. In other words, if you need to put a new executable on a PC, you need to wait till the next 100,000 pc's are shipped out to everyone and you need to make a good case to the IT department. Now the good thing about this sort of policy is that it leaves Access and Excel as the only ways to write custom software.

So thanks for reading our popular newsletter.  Feel free to make comments, copy the email to a friend or maybe even contribute to the next edition. And if you can, have a look at our software by using the Marketing section on the left hand side of this newsletter. If you really like this newsletter, why not purchase The Toolbox and you will get all the other newsletters and plenty more in a developer’s knowledge base tool with super searching facilities.

Garry Robinson - Software Consultant and Author

--- The end of this edition of Access Unlimited ---

PS Don’t forget the Workbench … http://www.vb123.com/workbench/

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Published  2006-02