rather than your users opening a front end directly on say their desktop, have them open another 'control' db on the network with code (could be autoexec macro to run vba code or perhaps all run in macro, no form required) that does the following:
note: this assumes you have your front end file name versioned (e.g. frontend v3b.accde) and you store in a network location that users have access to but not necessarily the same folder as the 'control' db
have the code do the following:
1. compare the frontend file name on the users c drive (suggest it is stored in localappdata) with the filename of the frontend on the network.
2. if they are different, code copies the network front end to the users c drive - otherwise there is nothing to do
3. code then opens the frontend on the users c drive and closes the 'control' db
You do not need to use a db to do this, you could do it in vb instead
So when you have a revision to the front end, just give it a new version number and place on the network in the right folder. The next time the user 'logs in' by running the control db, they will automatically update their front end before running it - introduces a very small delay in opening the file
the comparison just needs to be 'not the same', it does not need to be 'version on network is greater than local version' since versions should only increase anyway, but if for example you have to revert back to an earlier version for some reason 'not the same' will still work.
one other thing you can do is have some code in the front end which runs on a regular basis - rather than using a timer, I use an event on perhaps a navigation form which triggers the code. The code makse the same check on file names, and if there is a difference, it throws up a message saying something like 'an update is available, please log out and back in again' - or you could force an exit.
