Opening Multiple Databases

[naylorka]

Hi Folks,

Hoping someone may be able to point me in the right direction.

I've got several databases used for different tasks, in which I just added an hyperlink to them from a front end database. All my team could access any of the data bases at once. It was using the WINNT/MS OFFICE mdw file.

Since my last question, I've now managed to set up a MS Workgroup Administrator file, which is on a shared drive. Everyone has joined this workgroup, and when people logon it now greets them with their name and records their name against any tasks. Thanks to everyone for their help with setting this up.

But since I created this new workgroup, we can't access more than one database at at time. It comes up saying 'mdw file is in use'. However, one person in the office can. I've looked at all the setups for individuals, and can't see any difference between ours & this one individual.

Am I missing something obvious ?
Cheers
Karen

 

[RCurtin]

I don't know the answer to your question but having set up security for a few databases and read alot about it on these forums I do know that you should not have anyone join your workgroup permenantly.

You should use shortcuts. You should rejoin the original unaltered system.mdw and put a shortcut on each persons desktop to your database. This will open your database and join the user to your custom workgroup temporarily. This also means that users will be able to create or use any other unsecured databases as normal.

Example shortcut:
"C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\OFFICE11\MSACCESS.EXE" "C:\DBDev\DocDB_FE.mdb" /wrkgrp "C:\DBDev\MyWorkGroup.mdw" /user dev

To create this shortcut fine the Access exe file and create a shortcut on your desktop. Right click on it and change the target field. The first part will show the location of Access itself. The next should be the shortcut to your frontend which should be on your local drive and then your custom workgroup which should also be on each persons local drive.

 

[naylorka]

Thanks for your help & advice. I'll give this a go.

Is it feasible then to use this command to access one database from another ?

 

[RCurtin]

Why do you need to access one database from another? If people need to use 2 or 3 databases maybe it would make sense to have all the forms/queries in one database. It doesn't matter where the tables are because you could have links to the necessary tables in the different databases.

Otherwise I think it is possible to open one database from another in VB. You would just have to supply the workgroup name, a user name and password when you do it. Maybe someone else can help you more with this.

 

[ghudson]

Also, the users should not be sharing the MDW file. The users MDW file should be on their hard drive in the directory that thier copy of the front end is located.