Password issue: A2003/A2007 compatibility

[Big Pat]

Hi,

I've been working on a database at work in Access 2003. I need to speed up though, so I thought I'd it bring it home on a USB memory stick and work on it here using Access 2007. I do this all the time with Word and Excel files and just take care to save them in 2003 version so I can use them back in the office.

But when I try to open this database, it's asking for a password. I know for a fact I haven't set any password on it, because I wouldn't know how to. Holding down the shift key is ineffective too.

Is Access 2007 not backwards compatible or something?

 

[boblarson]

I work with Access 2000 and 2003 files in Access 2007 all of the time and it works back and forth.

Is this database one you've designed, yourself, from scratch?

 

[Moniker]

Also, I wonder if at work, he's part of an Access workgroup, at which point he'd need to bring home the MDW file as well and then connect to it. Pain in the butt, yes, but lots of places do that intentionally.

 

[Big Pat]

Hi,

It's a database I designed myself, from scratch, with quite a bit of help from this forum. It WAS originally in a workgroup folder, because new documents and files default to there, but for the last few days I've had it on my desktop. And there's no back end/front end thing going on. It's still in development and quite a ways off being released to the users.

However, one of the factors slowing me down at work today was that Access kept crashing. I was just trying to create a DLookUp on a subform and when I was tweaking the control, just moving it around, adjusting the font etc. I kept getting these messages telling me that Acces had encountered a problem and needed to close. After the fourth such message in about 20 minutes I gave up and emailed our IT helpdesk. I'm not particularly confident they're up to the job though!

Each time it crashed it created a Backup file, which I just renamed to the original filename, after having ditched the first one and then tried again. Could that process have created a "hidden" password that only became activated in Access 2007?

One other possible lead: I have had a lot of trouble recently when doing compact and repair. I didn't know there was a problem at first, but kept finding all these files called db1, db2 etc. It took me a while to figure out they were being created when I tried compacting and repairing. This was previously reported to our IT guys and one of them posted a question on this forum (after I told him he might understand some of the "techie" answers better than I) It seems that a db1 is normally TEMPORARILY created during compact and repair, and my PC seemed to be quitting halfway through the job. And I think they've given up trying to fix THAT problem, which I reported way back before Christmas.

Is all this connected? Do I need to have them re-install Access for me?

 

[checker]

If the problem only exists on the PC running Office 2007 and it works fine on the Office 2003 computer, my guess is that maybe some VBA references are missing or are using the latest versions versus the ones available on the 2003 machine. Try changing the references to the identical .dll used for Office 2003. (Copy them over if needed).

I've had those issues between Office 2000 and XP users in a multi-environment.

 

[Moniker]

The crashing thing is probably a result of not having the SP3 hotfix for Access, assuming you have SP3 in the first place. I had a very, very similar issue where just resizing a form in design mode and then opening it in Form View would crash Access. Very strange behavior that the hotfix corrected.

As for the password stuff, to make sure we're on the same page, we're talking about Access workgroups, not Windows, Network, or any other workgroups. These are set in Access (Tools -> Security -> Workgroup Administrator). If you get a "logon" dialog asking for a name and password everytime you open the DB and that logon dialog is not one of your forms, that's an Access Workgroup file (an MDW file) doing its thing. You'd just have to copy the MDW file to the machine(s) where you are having trouble and then logon as normal.

 

[Big Pat]

Thanks Moniker,

I'll pass your hotfix tip to our IT dept. That does sound VERY like what's been happening to me. I'm not certain which service pack I have just now (not been to the office today.)


As for the workgroups, I was talking about our network workgroups. I don't know anything about Access workgroups. Most of my databases are pretty simple affairs, but I'm the only one at work who knows ANYTHING about Access (and that's not much!!) None of them have ever needed a passsword and I have never implemented user-level security or anything like that. I wouldn't attempt it!

So I don't think there are any .mdw files. I've never even heard of them. I know there's an .ldb file created when the database is open that disappears again when you shut down. But I don't see what that would have to do with anything.

I guess my next step is hijack someone else's PC at work and see if I get the same behaviour there. It might help to determine whether my problem is database specific or machine specific.