Hi,
Sure: first, we have dropped the use of MDE and ADE and replaced them with
the use of standard Access security (via MDW files) to keep users from
looking into the code.
To make things a little harder for the hackers, I have created two MDW
files: with the master owner account and the other without. By distributing
the last one, users who tried conventional password breakers for Access
won't find the main developer's account, simple because it's not part of the
distributed MDW file. (This technique has been suggested by Microsoft
itself for securised MDB files.)
Of course, this protection is weak, especially for an ADP file as the VBA
source code is only protected by a password (contrary to the forms and the
queries) but it is sufficient for ours needs; especially when we take
account of the fact that the most important things are on the SQL Server
itself and therefore well protected.
Finally, we don't support Office 97 anymore. Time to get over, even if
that mean asking one customer to buy a new machine. Otherwise, you lose
more time trying to get things working than the small economy the customer
save by trying to keep an old machine up and running.
The above discussion is for Access 2000. I'm using Access 2002 now but I
didn't make any new tests about compatibility issues when I switched to
Access 2002.
Also, people with strong security exigences cannot afford to replace MDE and
ADE files with MDB and ADP; but often these needs are overrated by the
customer itself.
Of course, if you can have tight control over the various platforms where
the software will be distributed, then you won't have any compatibility
issue but that wasn't our case: at first, I tried to keep everything under
control, with numerous versions (in this aspect, virtual pc like Connectix
or VMWare come handy) but we still had some clients where none of the
available versions were working properly so, after some time, I gave up.
Maybe with WinXP and Access 2002-2003 theses problems are from the past but
I don't know.
S. L.
