Front End Corruption

[Chip]

I have an Access 2003 front end and backend. One user (company VP) has 2007
installed. He insists on opening the network front end instead of making a
copy. Since he started doing this the front end is corrupting. First, code
would stop. Then all forms, reports, and modules were gone. Now the MSysAces
table is missing. I am hoping that demanding he copy the front end will solve
the issue. Any other thoughts?

 

[Tony Toews [MVP]]

I have an Access 2003 front end and backend. One user (company VP) has 2007
installed. He insists on opening the network front end instead of making a
copy. Since he started doing this the front end is corrupting. First, code
would stop. Then all forms, reports, and modules were gone. Now the MSysAces
table is missing. I am hoping that demanding he copy the front end will solve
the issue.

Certainly should. Access front ends should never, ever be shared.
Especially if there are different versions of Access as they will
change various references. I've seen a problem in the newsgroups
where A2007 will change one reference, likely DAO to the A12 version
but A2003 can't change it back to the A11 version.

So this corruption is extremely likely to be his fault. About a 99.99%
chance. Now how you diplomatically tell him he's an idiot is your
problem. <sigh>

Now how are you copying the front end? Is it real easy to use from a
users viewpoint? The Auto FE Updater, once in place on the users
machine, only requires that they click on a shortcut.

Free Auto FE Updater utility at
http://www.granite.ab.ca/access/autofe.htm

Tony
--
Tony Toews, Microsoft Access MVP
Please respond only in the newsgroups so that others can
read the entire thread of messages.
Microsoft Access Links, Hints, Tips & Accounting Systems at
http://www.granite.ab.ca/accsmstr.htm
Tony's Microsoft Access Blog - http://msmvps.com/blogs/access/

 

[boblarson]

ALL users should be using a copy of the frontend on their machine. You
should NOT be having multiple users opening the same MDB file on the network.
That is a prime source of corruption, as well as other issues.

Give EACH user a copy of the frontend!
--
Bob Larson
Access World Forums Super Moderator
Utter Access VIP
Tutorials at http://www.btabdevelopment.com
If my post was helpful to you, please rate the post.
__________________________________

 

[(PeteCresswell)]

Per Chip:

I have an Access 2003 front end and backend. One user (company VP) has 2007
installed. He insists on opening the network front end instead of making a
copy. Since he started doing this the front end is corrupting. First, code
would stop. Then all forms, reports, and modules were gone. Now the MSysAces
table is missing. I am hoping that demanding he copy the front end will solve
the issue. Any other thoughts?

Letting users open a front end over the LAN is bad juju.

My personal mojo is a .Bat file.

Our users don't even know where the GoldCopies of their
applications live, but if they did, I'd make those directories
ReadOnly for them.

Each user has an icon on their desktop that's aimed at the .Bat
file. When the .Bat file runs, it checks to see if the latest
version is on the user's C: drive. If so it just opens it. If
not, it copies the latest-and-greatest down and then opens it.

Installing one of our apps on a user's desktop consists of two
one-time-only actions:
--------------------------------------------------------------
- Verifying that their install of MS Office includes MS Access
and updating it if necessary.

- Copying the icon from a LAN directory to their desktop
--------------------------------------------------------------

Maybe I'm just stuck in a rut or something, but to me this is the
Good-Right-And-Holy-Path for deployment of MS Access apps.

Greater minds than mine have crafted special applications to do
the what my .Bat file does and one of them would probably be the
path of least resistance.

 

[boblarson]

And, to go with the others on this, I have a tool also that I use that
enables any frontend for autoupdating and it is available here:

http://www.btabdevelopment.com/main/AccessTools/tabid/78/Default.aspx

--
Bob Larson
Access World Forums Super Moderator
Utter Access VIP
Tutorials at http://www.btabdevelopment.com
If my post was helpful to you, please rate the post.
__________________________________

 

[David W. Fenton]

I have an Access 2003 front end and backend. One user (company VP)
has 2007 installed. He insists on opening the network front end
instead of making a copy. Since he started doing this the front
end is corrupting. First, code would stop. Then all forms,
reports, and modules were gone. Now the MSysAces table is missing.
I am hoping that demanding he copy the front end will solve the
issue. Any other thoughts?

Write code to be called in the startup routine of your front end
that will give the user a message telling they can't run the front
end from there, and then exits when the user clicks OK.

If he complains, then you can explain the issue to him.

And when he doesn't like it, escalate to the next level of
management, where he'll look like a complete idiot.

 

[Arvin Meyer [MVP]]

I have an Access 2003 front end and backend. One user (company VP) has 2007
installed. He insists on opening the network front end instead of making a
copy. Since he started doing this the front end is corrupting. First, code
would stop. Then all forms, reports, and modules were gone. Now the
MSysAces
table is missing. I am hoping that demanding he copy the front end will
solve
the issue. Any other thoughts?

In addition to other comments here:


First, ask the IT department to install 2003 on his machine and uninstall
2007. I know of no corporate IT departments that allow anyone to use any OS
that they like because of patching and update issues.

So that won't work for you? OK. Make a good copy of the front-end and hide
it, add a second copy to your machine so you can have a backup. Now put a
copy on his machine and make a shortcut that opens that copy. Clear his
recent file lists so he can't just simply click File >>> Open.

Then add this code to a module and use an autoexec macro to runcode:

Public Function CloseDB()
MsgBox "Open database on your machine only", vbOKOnly, "Warning!"
DoCmd.Quit
End Function

You can leave off the msgbox if you don't mind him calling you everytime it
just slams the door on him. Delete the macro and code to distribute the
front-end. Use the ByPass Key (F11) to avoid running the code yourself.

 

[Dale Fye]

I actually went so far as to put an app similiar to Tony's 'Auto FE Updater"
in the startup folder of my users. That way, every time the start their
computer a new copy of the FE is copied to their C:\Temp folder, and the
shortcut on their desktop points to that file.

This was the easiest way and least intrusive I could think of. It could
just as easily call the .bat file that Pete mentions. The advantage I found
of doing it this way was that most of the time people in my office boot
their PC, then walk away to get coffee while the system is logging them on.
They never even notice that I have updated thier local copy of the frontend.

Dale

 

[Chip]

Thanks everyone. I have also used a bat file many times. Mine reads an
invisible text box on the opening form and compares to a one field,one record
table that contains the version date. If it doesn't match, it installs runs
the bat file which is similar to Tony's Auto FE Updater. Since this db only
has 4 users and 3 are fine with making a new copy when told, I had not added
this feature yet.
I was just checking if anyone thought there might be some other issue. This
is the first FE corruption I've encountered. I've handled data corruption
issues with record-locking, etc.
Thanks Again.