Help protect an Access database and its objects with user-level security (MDB)

With the User-Level Security Wizard, you can apply user-level security with a comprehensive security scheme and encode your Microsoft Access database.

1. Open the database that you want to help protect.
2. On the Tools menu, click Security, and then click User-Level Security Wizard.
3. Follow the directions in the wizard dialog boxes.

Notes

• The User-Level Security Wizard creates a back-up copy of the current Access database with the same name and a .bak extension, and then employs security measures for the selected objects in the current database.
• If your current Access database uses a password to help protect Microsoft Visual Basic for Applications (VBA) code, the wizard prompts you to unlock the Visual Basic project before the wizard will run. Unlock the project and then rerun the wizard.
• Any passwords that you create through the wizard are printed in the User-Level Security Wizard report when you finish using the wizard. You should keep this report in a secure location. You can use this report to re-create your workgroup file.

If you want to help protect some parts of a database, such as the design of certain objects, but you do not care about establishing different levels of access for different groups of users, you may want to consider securing an application without requiring users to log on. This does not remove user-level security but essentially disables it for all but specific objects.

1. Help protect your database by using the User-Level Security Wizard.

   How?

   With the User-Level Security Wizard, you can apply user-level security with a comprehensive security scheme and encode your Microsoft Access database.

   1. Open the database that you want to help protect.
   2. On the Tools menu, click Security, and then click User-Level Security Wizard.
   3. Follow the directions in the wizard dialog boxes.

   Notes

   • The User-Level Security Wizard creates a back-up copy of the current Access database with the same name and a .bak extension, and then employs security measures for the selected objects in the current database.
   • If your current Access database protects Microsoft Visual Basic for Applications (VBA) code with a password, the wizard prompts you to unlock the Visual Basic project before the wizard will run. Unlock the project and then rerun the wizard.
   • Any passwords that you create through the wizard are printed in the User-Level Security Wizard report when you finish using the wizard. You should keep this report in a secure location. You can use this report to re-create your workgroup file.
2. For each table, query, form, report, and macro you want to be available to users, grant the appropriate permissions to the Admin user account.

   How?

   1. Open the database.

      The workgroup information file in use when you log on must contain the user or group accounts that you want to assign permissions for at this time; however, you can assign permissions to groups and add users to those groups later.

   2. On the Tools menu, point to Security, and then click User And Group Permissions.
   3. On the Permissions tab, click Users or Groups, and then in the User/Group Name box, click the user or group that you want to assign permissions to.
   4. Click the type of object in the Object Type box, and then click the name of the object to assign permissions for in the Object Name box. Select multiple objects in the Object Name box by dragging through the objects you want to select, or by holding down CTRL and clicking the objects you want.

      Note  Hidden objects aren't displayed in the Object Name box unless you select Hidden objects on the View tab of the Options dialog box (Tools menu).

   5. Under Permissions, select the permissions you want to assign, or clear the permissions you want to remove for the group or user, and then click Apply. Repeat steps 4 and 5 to assign or remove permissions for additional objects for the current user or group.

   6. Repeat steps 3 through 5 for any additional users or groups.

   Notes

   • Some permissions automatically imply the selection of others. For example, the Modify Data permission for a table automatically implies the Read Data and Read Design permissions because you need these to modify the data in a table. Modify Design and Read Data imply Read Design. For macros, Read Design implies Open/Run.
   • When you edit an object and save it, it retains its assigned permissions. However, if an object is saved with a new name, it is now a new object, and so has the default permissions defined for that object type rather than the permissions of the original object.
3. Turn off the Logon dialog box.

   How?

   If you don't need to establish different levels of permissions for different groups of users, you can have Microsoft Access automatically log users on as the Admin user in the Users group with the permissions specified for that group. Users will not be required to enter their user name and password in the Logon dialog box when they open the database. Using this method, you can help protect any or all of the objects in a database. However, each user will have the same set of permissions. This does not remove user-level security from the database.

   1. Join the workgroup that has the logon procedure that you want to deactivate.

      How?

      Important  If you are setting up user-level security and need to make sure that your workgroup and its permissions can't be duplicated, you should make sure the workgroup information file that defines the workgroup you're joining has been created with a unique workgroup ID (WID). If such a workgroup information file doesn't exist, you should create one.

      1. Start Microsoft Access.
      2. On the Tools menu, point to Security, and then click Workgroup Administrator.
      3. In the Workgroup Administrator dialog box, click Join.
      4. Type the path and name of the workgroup information file that defines the Microsoft Access workgroup you want to join, and then click OK, or click Browse and then use the Select Workgroup Information File dialog box to locate the workgroup information file.

         The next time you start Microsoft Access, it uses the user and group accounts and passwords stored in the workgroup information file for the workgroup you joined.

   2. On the Tools menu, point to Security, and then click User And Group Accounts.
   3. Click the Users tab.
   4. In the Name box, select Admin from the list, and then click Clear Password.

      The next time any member of the workgroup that you joined in step 1 starts Microsoft Access and opens a database, it will no longer display the Logon dialog box.