Does Upgrading Assist in Security?

One interesting conclusion that I reached while researching for this book was that Microsoft made a number of small but worthwhile improvements to Access since the 97 version that would make the 2002 and 2003 versions more appealing. The following sections describe some of these improvements.

Access 2002 or Later

I have been using Access 2002 to develop both Access 2000 and 2002 databases ever since the version became available, and I have enjoyed the 2002 interface more than the 2000 interface. Included in that environment were these new security and protection related improvements.

• You can switch workgroups from within Access, which is a good time saver if you decide not to use shortcut files when swapping workgroups (Chapter 8).

• The inclusion of XML makes saving and retrieving tables from text files more effective. This feature will improve your backups (Chapter 5).

• The default workgroup file is saved in the secure \documents and settings\ path used by Windows 2000 and Windows XP. This feature is useful if you adopt the anonymous windows authentication strategy that I discuss in Chapter 10.

• You can open a password-protected database from another Access database. This feature makes the password more valuable as a protection mechanism, especially in environments where the majority of the users know the password.

• The FileDialog object is included as part of the supported libraries. This feature allows developers to support a file browser from within the Access-supported libraries, as shown in the linked table demonstration example in Chapter 4.

• You can create a workgroup file directly from VBA code. I use this feature in a demonstration on creating a developer workgroup file with user names and passwords in Chapter 8.

Access 2000 or Later

Included with Access 2000 was the ADO library, which offered some subtle changes, such as the following.

• The ability to find out who was using the database and to stop new users from opening the database. This technology can be combined with the surveillance techniques provided in the download database to work out whether anyone was using the database without using the startup procedures (all discussed in Chapter 6).

• SQL query enhancements in this version offered a more readable way of changing workgroup security in code (Chapter 8).

Another big change was a new approach for VBA code management. This change unfortunately included the removal of protection for modules in the Database window. You can find a good solution to this change in Chapter 8. To replace this protection, the VBA project now has password protection (Chapter 11), a protection mechanism that is not without its weaknesses (Chapter 9).

Upgrading or Fine-Tuning Your Operating Systems

When I started planning this book, I attached very little significance to using the operating system as part of Access security. Now that I have concluded this research, I was surprised by how much importance I now attach to the operating system as a way of protecting and securing the database. Therefore, I suggest that you consider how you use the latest operating systems and upgrade to them if you haven't already. As for developers, consider this tip.

Tip  

Developers really should understand and experiment with Windows XP and 2000 folder permissions and become proactive with your clients to ensure that they are protecting databases in the best possible way.