About the Book and the Demonstration Material

The goal of the material in this book is to improve Access protection and security, and, as a result, the material in the book does not target a particular skill level, such as developer or DBA. More than half of the book is at a level that a competent Access DBA could manage, and, where possible, I have set up the more complex demonstration examples as plug-and-play forms. In other words, you can use the forms in your database with only a few modifications to some constants at the top of the VBA code. Naturally, because I regularly write for developers' magazines, there are some examples that will keep the very skilled end of town happy.

Another design criteria of this book was to help you protect and secure any Access database created with Access 97 through to Access 2003 and beyond. In addition, the download samples, where possible, will work unchanged with the different versions of Access. If you are wondering how I managed to put together an Access book suited to four versions, you'll be interested to know that it's because I wrote a lot of this material by using Access 97. Looking back on that decision, I am glad that I did because the help relating to many of the protection and security issues was more forthcoming in Access 97 than in the later versions. In the book, I always refer to Access XP as Access 2002, and that terminology decision was vindicated with the new name for Access 2003.

Now I will describe how I have structured the chapters, and then I will tell how you can find and work with the download material.

How the Chapters are Structured

While writing this book, I tried to keep to the following structure:

• An introduction describes what you can expect to find in the chapter.

• A separate overview for the IT manager, the DBA, and the developer discusses issues and includes download examples relevant to each group .

• Where possible, the easy material appears near the beginning of the chapter.

• Where the material is relevant to the DBA or is difficult to describe in words, graphics accompany the material.

• At the end of each chapter is a list of all the relevant Internet or help material. You will need to visit a Web page for the actual links to the pages. I have set it up this way in case the location of the material changes.

• Each chapter closes with a summary of discussions throughout the chapter and an introduction to the next chapter.

As I have mentioned earlier, the book covers material for different versions of Access. In the book, I have used the following icons to tell you to which version of Access the particular section applies. In most cases, the material is compatible from that version of Access to the newer versions:

	(Access 97, Access 2000, Access 2002, Access 2003)
	(Access 2000, Access 2002, Access 2003)
	(Access 2002 or Access 2003)
	(Access 97 only)
	(Access 2003 only)

If you happen to be reading this book in 2007, you will probably be able to use any material that's applicable for Access 2003, and if this book is still selling well at that time, you had better have a look at the Apress Web site, which may offer a newer and even more relevant version of this book.

How to Download the Demonstration Databases

This book is accompanied by a single download from the Web site http://www.apress.com/ . When you get to the Web site, click the Downloads button on the left side and find this book in the list.

In the download .ZIP file, you will find a separate database for Access 97 called grMap97.mdb , one for Access 2000 called grMap2000.mdb , and one for Access 2002/2003 called grMap2002.mdb . Then follow these steps to use the demonstration databases:

1. Open the database suited to your version of Access.

2. Select the chapter number from the drop-down list at the top of the form (shown in Figure 1-1).

   
   Figure 1-1: The demonstration database for Access 2002.

3. Select the object that you want to review and click the View Object/Code button at the bottom of the window.

The demonstration database holds approximately 40 different objects. Some of these modules are re-used for different demonstrations. Some of the modules and form class modules require references to other common Microsoft libraries. If this is the case, I have mentioned the library reference in the header of the module. After you have downloaded the database, you should keep a copy of the demonstration database in its original form in the .ZIP just in case you need to return the demonstration database to its original state. Because Access has improved since 1997, some of the demonstrations apply only to the later versions. You may want to see my discussions on versions in the section "Does Upgrading Assist in Security?" later in this chapter.

The Testing Database

Throughout the book, I have referred to the Northwind database as the database that you need to use for testing. I do so because we needed a database with a good variety of objects, and I needed a database that most of the readers would be familiar with. Don't worry too much if you don't think that you understand the Northwind database, because understanding it isn't necessary. Another reason I choose this database becuase it will be familiar to most readers and because it has a good variety of objects. If you want to use your own database for testing, that will be okay for almost all the examples in the book, as there is little that is very specific to Northwind.

Caution  

No matter whether you use Northwind or your own database, the important thing is that you experiment with a copy of the database in an experimental directory.

You should find a copy of the Northwind database in a subdirectory called samples in the folder where Microsoft Office or Access was installed. The likely locations of Northwind will be something like these:

• C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office\samples for Access 97 and 2000.

• C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office 10\samples for Access 2002.

• C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office 11\samples for Access 2003.

Another way of tracking down the location of the sample database is to open any Access database and press CTRL+G. This action opens the Immediate window, where you can type the following expression to find the folder where your computer administrator installed Access:

 ? Application.SysCmd(acSysCmdAccessDir) 

If you do not have a copy of Northwind.mdb on your computer, you will need to open the Access installation CD and make sure that Northwind is one of the options selected. If you really get stuck, send me email, and I will return one by email.

Further Instructions and Issues

Because some issues will probably crop up on some computers, I will maintain a Web page that discusses what the latest versions of the demonstration databases are and what changes, if any, have been made. You will find this list at the following address, along with my email address: http://www.vb123.com/map/dem.htm .

Any bug fixes required for the demonstration database will be posted to the Apress Web site when they are identified.