Limit to users of 1 system.mdw?

[aexley]

Quick question for information and future refernce purposes more than anything.

Is there a limit to the number of users who can use 1 networked system.mdw file at the same time?

Thanks in advance for your help.

aexley

P.S. While I'm here. I've noticed it's possible for one user to be logged on to several systems at once all using the same MDW security file. Why is this possible? Surely it would be much more secure to not allow this.

Thanks.

 

[dannyocean]

First you should create a mdw for your db and not use the system. 2nd if you create a shortcut for people to access thge db from it will keep unwanteds out, the syntax of the startup line of the shorcut refernces the mdw for that db. I have 5 db's for one department and I use the same mdw. Each db has its own shortcut.

HTH

Danny

To create the mdw, see help in Access on workgroup
reply to this thread if you need help with the shortcut

 

[JPeters]

>Is there a limit to the number of users who can use 1 >networked system.mdw file at the same time?

Are you using windows 2000 or something above? If so, you can actually setup security on the actual system.mdw file itself by going to it's properties.
Otherwise, it could be complicated (well, I'm no pro at workgroups, someone will probably have a better answer than me)...

I'll start by asking you this... Why limit the people that can login to the workgroup? It would make more since to limit the number of users that can be within a specific database at a given time, wouldn't it? This can be done a number of ways, but a specific way is to login exclusively (only 1 user in the DB at a time).
Create a shortcut to the DB, edit the shortcut path:
"C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office\Msaccess.exe" "C:\MyPath\MyDB.mdb" /excl
Exlusive Access... just use the ShortCut to load the DB, not the actual DB itself.

>P.S. While I'm here. I've noticed it's possible for one >user to be logged on to several systems at once all using >the same MDW security file. Why is this possible? Surely >it would be much more secure to not allow this.

Not sure exactly what you're asking here --> You wonder why workgroups allow users to be logged into one than 1 DB at a given time? Convenience, I would say. If you don't want this to happen, build each DB on different MDW Security files so they have to switch workgroups in order to login to certain databases. I switch workgroups about 10 times a day at my job. It's not too inconvenient, and you can even do it through a little bit of code, very simple. I designed a form I like to use that has buttons that log me into whtaever workgroup I decide programatically. It's nifty and saves me the time of finding workgroup paths / loading up the workgroup admin etc..

Hope this helps.

-Josh

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-JPeters
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[aexley]

Thank you for your replies.

I appear to have created a little confusion when I said 'system.mdw'. I have actually created a new MDW file with all the appropriate security settings. Up until recently the nature of our network (in the loosest possible sense) was such that it seemed more appropriate for each user to have their own copy of the MDW file which I overwrote with a new one each time security settings changed. Now we have a decent network in and the database has been moved from just a linked machine to a full on server I wasn't sure how many people could use the one MDW. I appreciate your points re: other databases with seperate workgroups, but as there is only going to be the one DB for the foreseeable future that's not an issue.

Thanks for your help.

aexley

QFTD: "The path of my life is strewn with cowpats from the devils own satanic herd!" - Edmund Blackadder