I am trying to "secure" an .mdb file that is being accessed by several users
from a VB client using ADO access.  The .mdb file is on a network drive.
The best I can gather from the documentation, if the userID and password are
provided, ADO tries to use the default workgroup file on the local machine.

  db.Open "PROVIDER=Microsoft.Jet.OLEDB.4.0;Data
Source=n:\Board\Board.mdb;UserID=RemoteAccess;Password=xyZ"

Am I way off base here?  How can I password protect the .mdb file (more to
keep people from meddling with it than data security reasons) so that the VB
clients on the local machines can open the file?  Basically, I want to
prevent a casual user from using Access to open the .mdb file on the network
drive.

Any pointers to references or ideas for a solution will be greatly
appreciated!!!

Thanks!!

Don

Please don't crosspost.

Regards,
Eric Garza, MVP

One of the links on Carl's page lead me to:

http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/ado2...
mdrefjetprovspec.asp

which has the following reference (abbreviated):

Provider-Specific Connection Parameters
The OLE DB Provider for Microsoft Jet supports several provider-specific
dynamic properties in addition to those defined by ADO. As with all other
Connection parameters, they can be set via the Connection object's
Properties collection or as part of the connection string.

The following table lists these properties with the corresponding OLE DB
property name in parentheses.

Jet OLEDB:Database Password
(DBPROP_JETOLEDB_DATABASEPASSWORD)
        Indicates the database password.

Jet OLEDB:System Database
(DBPROP_JETOLEDB_SYSDBPATH)
    Indicates the path and file name for the workgroup information file
(system database).

This implies to me that I should be able to add "Database Password =" to the
ConnectionString like so:

db.Open "PROVIDER=Microsoft.Jet.OLEDB.4.0;Data
Source=n:\Board\Board.mdb;Database Password=xyZ"

(The database is simply password protected.)

However, when I made the change I got the following error:

    Runtime Error "-2147467259 (80004005)":
    Could not find installable ISAM.

When I clicked 'Help' I got information on "Form Window".

Summarizing:

1)  Is it possible to open a password protected database using ADO?

2)  If so how?

3)  If not, what is considered the common approach for doing this.

Thanks!!

Don

<snip>

e.g.
oConn.Open "Provider=Microsoft.Jet.OLEDB.4.0;" & _
                   "Data Source=c:\somepath\mydb.mdb;" & _
                   "Jet OLEDB:Database Password=MyDbPassword;", _
                   "admin", ""

--

Thanks,
Carl Prothman
Microsoft Visual Basic MVP
http://www.able-consulting.com

Carl,

I think I see now!  Just overwhelmed by all the options I suppose!

Is there a good reference text on ADO and how ODBC, OLEDB, etc relate to it?
As you have undoubtedly concluded, I am now in that very dangerous stage of
the learning process where I know enough of the keywords and am biased by
past experience that is not necessarily related to the problem.

I realize that simple database password protection is easily broken
(actually had to do it to one of my own files once!  :-)  ).  The only
reason I want to add the password is to make it a _little_ harder for
someone to inadvertently open the database file.  I had a user inadvertently
open the file while people were connected using the VB app (a crude system
status indicator -- not very robust but helps since we are in two separate
buildings).  Needless to say, it quickly hosed things up!!

Your web page has been duly bookmarked and notes put in my notebook.

Thanks to you, and Eric!!

Don

--

Thanks,
Carl Prothman
Microsoft Visual Basic MVP
http://www.able-consulting.com

Helpful  for me too. Thanks Carl

Regards

Paul