Prevent Excel opening Access Tables

[Bishop426]

Hi

I'm really, really stumpted on this problem!

I have locked my database down (prevented F11 and Shift key bypass) but if you go into My Computer, right click on the database file (test.mdb), click Properties, Opens With, Change, Microsoft Office Excel, OK, Apply.

Double click on test.mdb, Excel opens and shows all the tables that exist.



If you then double click on one of the tables, the contents open into an Excel spreadsheet.

In a nutshell, I want to prevent the ability of Excel opening any of the tables that exist within test.mdb. If not, the disabling of F11 and Shift was pointless.

Does anybody know how to achieve this?

I have spent hours searching the net, these forums and various settings within the DB itself. I tried hiding the tables within Access but they are still visable within Excel.

HELP!

[ajetrumpet]

Wow,

I have never thought of this, but if you have users that are smart enough to figure THIS kind of stuff out, you might have to talk to your network administrator about changing general user privaleges in windows.

There might be an answer to this one...

[rpeare]

Well, what exactly are your system limitations?

Are the users allowed to modify data inside the Access database? Are they even allowed to open the Access database?

Or are you simply trying to limit how they do their data entry to the forms you've created in Access?

I've never tried this before but if you the users should not be allowed to open the Access database at all you might try:

Log into the workstation as an administrator
Right Click the Database
Choose Properties
Security Tab
Edit Button
Change their permission to read only or deny all access

There's also an 'advanced' permission setting area.

[Bishop426]

Permissions:-

The users are allowed to open the database. They also need read and write access to perfrom tasks.

I am only trying to limit (or remove) their ability to gain access to the data tables that are held within the database window. This has been done by disbling the F11 function and the Shift override of the autoexec.

It was discovered this morning, that by changing the 'OPEN WITH' to MS Excel, then opening it, ALL the data tables are listed and all the user has to do is double click the table they want to see and after a brief pause, all the data that is contained within that table, is displayed as a normal Excel spreadsheet.

Thus bypassing the security in Access.

I have played around with the permissions, but have (as yet) been unable to restrict the tables being opened within Excel.

I am really stumped on this. Some of the tables contain really sensitive data.

Any help is appreciated.....

[NTC]

I pretty much concur with the other posts. If you think about it; .mdb is associated with Access. So if they are going after the data with Excel - this isn't a casual intrusion - - this is someone getting creatively malicious. So there is nothing in Access 2003 you can do. You can look at network & OS security perhaps.

Access 2010 has encryption capability. You might want to invest into one of the textbooks and read up on it to see if it is going to meet your needs. Next level is going to a sqlserver back end file. Again - research is needed to see if it meets your needs.

Finally - don't over look 'roll your own' if the issue only involves one or a few field(s) or columns. I have encrypted SSN & credit card numbers fields with simple algorithms. This puts the formula into the FE which can then be prevented from going into design view to see. Is the math crackable? sure....but not by the type party I was concerned about.....

Hope it helps.