Using Access 2003:  I am developing an application which is using
user-level security.  I have a custom mdw for this application (in
which user "admin" is NOT a member of the admins group, etc).
Initially, I had a single .mdb file for my development; however, since
the final application will have a separate back-end on a server, with
front-ends (as .mde files) on individual user machines, I have just
split my database. When I did this, I was logged into the database as a
member of the admins group.

After splitting the database, I find two things which seems rather odd
to me (note: this is my first serious use of user-level security, so
maybe my expectations are wrong):

1. If I close Access, and then try to open the newly-created back-end
by double-clicking on it in Windows Explorer, I get the following error
message: "This database is in an unrecognised format. The database may
have been created with a later version of MS Access. Upgrade your
version of Access to the current one, then open this database."  This
is obviously wrong, but I don't know why.  If I open Access, then open
the newly-created back-end from the Getting Started - Open panel, the
file opens OK, and is reported as being in Access 2002-2003 file
format.

.... which leads to:

2.  The newly-created back-end is no longer secure.  After I open it
(as described above), the User and Group Accounts dialog shows the
entries in my default system.mdw, and I am logged in as the default
user "admin".  If I try to run the User-level Security Wizard on this
"now un-secured" database, I get the following message: "The security
wizard cannot be run on a database when you are both logged on as the
Admin user and the wizard has previously run on the database. To fix
this problem, you may log on as another member of the Admins group or
import all objects to a new database."  [Note: the tables are owned by
the user I was logged in as when I split the database - the same user
name exists in both my default mdw and my custom mdw, but they were
created with different PersonalID strings.]

I don't understand why the new back-end doesn't have the same security
as the database it was split from.  Nor do I understand why I get the
"unrecognised database format" error.

I would appreciate any explanation of what's happened, and what I've
misunderstood.  And particularly, how I should proceed to re-secure my
back-end and what I need to do with front-end links after that.

Rob

Rob wrote:
I take it you used the splitter wizard.  That will always result in a secure
frontend and unsecure backend.  Instead do it manually - see
http://www.jmwild.com/SplitSecure.htm

It could be that you have two versions of Access on your machine and it was
trying to open it in the earlier version (nothing to do with security).

Thanks for the comments, Joan.

I did use the splitter wizard; I'll check out the manual method from your
site for future use.  Why am I not surprised that the MS product behaves
illogically ;-)  I have manually re-secured the back-end by importing the
tables into a new mdb file created while I'm attached via my custom mdw
file, then re-linked the front-end to that - seems OK.

As for the unrecognised format, I do have other versions of Access on my
machine (both A2k and A97, to support older applications).  My experience is
that Windows will use the most recently used version of Access to open an
mdb file directly from Windows Explorer; however, that's not the case here -
I haven't used the older versions for some time.  I guess I'll just file
that one in the curiosity basket.

Thanks again,

Rob

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Rob Parker wrote:
Well I agree it should at least warn you of this.

I have manually re-secured the back-end by
That'd be the method, yes.

Perhaps someone else used your computer?

I'll bet that's not the only thing in that basket ;-)

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