Tracking users in Access

[auger]

I'm seeking general info on tracking user's activities in our Access 2000 db's.

We get frequent lock-ups where we receive 'unrecognized database format' ...generally when this happens, we have an orphan .ldb file that refuses to go away. Sometimes having everyone re-start their machines resolves the problem; sometimes that doesn't help. At that point, I can usually go in a perform a Compact & Repair and everything sorts itself out.

We have 5 users who all write to 4 different back-end db's on the same server. I've heard that bad shut downs can cause this problem & I suspect that we have a problem user who refuses to treat machines with any degree of respect which can lead to problems in Access.

If I open the orphan .ldb file in notepad, I can see who has gained access to the db but this doesn't spell out what has happened. Is there a way that I can view bad shut-downs etc. from within Access? Maybe Event Viewer in NT4 can be configured to log bad shutdowns?

Any suggetions, advice or commentary?

Thanks in advance.

 

[auger]

I think I can answer the Event Viewer question myself. In NT, when a user shuts down normally, the last event should be Event 6006 "The Event log service was stopped".

When a machine starts, the first event should be 6006 "The Event log service was started".

So, if I pair the 6005 & 6006 events, I should be able to tell if a user shut down normally or abruptly (which could include a blue screen or bad shut down).

Any comments on the rest of my original post? How can you effectively log users activities to see if they are using the db's/machines correctly?