USING TOOLS TO MAKE LIFE WITH ACCESS SECURITY EASIER

Access security is a complex topic, but luckily some development tools are available to help ease the pain of implementing security in your applications. The following sections discuss the tools available to help you handle security. These tools are the Security Wizard and the Security white paper.

Using the Security Wizard

A Security Wizard is included with the retail product. No longer do you have to download it from an electronic service or call Microsoft Product Support to have a disk sent to you.

The Security Wizard is officially known as the User-Level Security Wizard. This is the fourth generation for the Security Wizard. The original Security Wizard was nothing more than a giant SendKeys function.

The User-Level Security Wizard allows you to choose the database objects types you want to secure, and it imports relationships, toolbars, and import/export specifications. It also automatically encrypts your newly secured database. If you try to run the User-Level Security Wizard while logged on as the default Admin user, it will require you to create a new workgroup file.

To run the User-Level Security Wizard, follow these steps:

1.	Start Access, logging on as the user who you want as the new owner of the database and all its objects.
2.	Open the database you want to secure.
3.	From the Tools menu, choose Security and then User-Level Security Wizard.
4.	Follow the dialogs until your database is secure.

The security wizard in Access 2000 is the most powerful version yet. No step in securing your application cannot be performed using the wizard, including adding users and groups.

Printing Users and Groups from Access

Although the User-Level Security Wizard takes the prize for being the most useful security tool available, you shouldn't overlook another tool that's provided for you in the Access user interface. You can get a detailed report of the users and groups from the workgroup information file.

To create a report listing all the users and groups (or just the users or groups), follow these steps:

1.	Start Access, logging on as a member of the Admins group.
2.	From the Tools menu, choose Security and then User and Group Accounts.
3.	Select the Users tab.
4.	Click the Print Users and Groups button.
5.	Choose Both Users and Groups, Only Users, or Only Groups. Access prints a detailed report.

Reading the Security White Papers

Several papers have been written on Access security. By far the most popular is the Security white paper. This is a must-read paper for any developer planning on using security in an Access database.

In addition to the main Security white paper, a Programming Jet Security white paper is available. This paper goes into the programming intricacies that are touched on at the end of this chapter.

Both papers have been presented at a number of conferences and are updated for each version of Access.

Using Other Security Resources

In addition to the traditional documentation that comes with the product and Microsoft white papers, other resources are available. Just about every conference that features Access has at least one session devoted to security. Finally, a few of the advanced third-party developer books are devoting a chapter or two to security. Wherever you are, some help is available when it comes to implementing security in Access.