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Security question.

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devagupt

Vendor
Oct 27, 2006
40
US
I have created a User - Packaging and want to get rid of it.
I went to security - and to user and group accounts and selected the user to delete and the all the buttons ( like new,delete etc) are deactivated. How do i remove the user Packaging and keep only Admin as user.
Everytime i open any database , it asks me for a password for username Packaging .

Please Help!
 
Login as the admin user (using whatever password you set for this user). Then, you should have the ability to delete the Packaging user. Finally, remove the password from the admin profile to get Access to stop asking you to login.
 
How do i login as Admin? By default it logs in as Packaging.
 
When you go to login, overwrite the user ID to read "admin". As far as the password goes, you're on your own.
 
It doesnt recognise Admin as a user. It says not a valid user . Originally Admin didnt have a password. Only Packaging had a password which was created by me.
 
admin" is a user that is always available. You cannot delete this user profile.

Further, when you start Access, it essentially attempts to login using the "admin" account without a password. It only asks for a username and password if this is unsuccesful. Thus, you (or somebody) created a password on the "admin" user profile.

Did you set up security for this database, or did somebody else do it?
 
I setup another username called Packaging and a password in the database. Everytime i open the database , it prompts a username =packaging and asks for a password. It does this with any database i open.
I went to security and clicked user and group accounts. There i created a new user Packaging and a corresponding password. Now anything i open in Access , it asks for a password with Packaging as the username. I tried deleting the username but the delete button is deactivated.
Also i have the same database(packaging report) copied to another destination where people open it and enter information. It doesnt prompt them for a username or a password but when i go to the public drive and open it , as usual it prompts a username packaging and asks for a password. It seems like it has assumed packaging to be a default user .

Please help!
 
Some important things to understand about Access security:

1) Access stores user profiles in an mdw file, not in the database itself. With a default setup, changing user profile information while in one database changes it for all databases you open while using that computer.

2) Any time you use Access, your permissions, etc. are determined by the mdw file to which you are presently linked.

3) The username displayed by Access at the login screen is the username that last successfully logged in to Access (even if it was a different database) using the current mdw file. This can easily be changed.

4) If Access does not let you login with a user profile, you have an error with the profile name and/or the password. The message displayed is the same if the username does not exist or if the password is incorrect.

5) There is always always always an "admin" user and a "users" usergroup. You can't get rid of these.

6) Access does not require you to login, or even give you the opportunity to login, if the "admin" user has no password. If the "admin" account has no password, Access automatically logs you in as this user without ever displaying the prompt. If you see the prompt, this account has a password.

7) In the default setup, the "admin" account has no password. If you are seeing the login, you or somebody else explicitly added a password to this profile.

8) If you are logged in as a user which doesn't have permission to change user profiles (and I suspect that Packaging is one such user), you will be unable to add/edit/delete user profiles.

Based on what you have described, I have reached the following conclusions:

A) You (or somebody else) added a password to the "admin" profile.

B) When the "packaging" user was created, it was not given permission to edit user profiles.

C) Thus, you must login as "admin" in order to remove the "packaging" profile.

D) To do this, you need the "admin" password.

D1) If you put the password on the "admin" profile, try every password you are likely to have used.
D2) If somebody else did it, speak with them to get the password.
D3) If somebody else did it, but they are unavailable, let me know so we can discuss what to do from here.
 
Every user has a default MDW file on their hard drive.

You have password protected the Admin user on your MDW file, everybody elses is password free.

Access attempts to open with the Admin user first. As it finds a password on your MDW file's Admin user it prompts for a password. As nobody elses does it opens straight into the Admin account.

The Admin account almost certainly still has full permissions to the database so you can probably just create a new MDW file on your PC, join to it and open the database with no password being requested.

There are some excellent FAQs on this site for Access security. Do some reading and then give it another go - I don't think anyone gets it quite right the fist time (or the second or third times in my case!).

Ed Metcalfe.

Please do not feed the trolls.....
 
The Admin account almost certainly still has full permissions to the database so you can probably just create a new MDW file on your PC, join to it and open the database with no password being requested.
"

How do i go about doing that? I have found the .mdw file . i opened it and in there there is a query which when run diaplays all the users and "packaging" is one user.

 
Create a new workgroup (MDW) file via Workgroup Administrator.

If you are using Access 2003 (or 2002, I think) this can be found under Tools > Security > Workgroup Administrator.

Previous versions will have a separate shortcut on your start menu. Alternatively search for *wrk* on your harddrive (I can't remember the exact name of the file, sorry) and it will find it cor you.

Ed Metcalfe.

Please do not feed the trolls.....
 
I created a new mdw file and replaced it with the existing mdw file and now it doesnt prompt for a password and opens it directly with admin as the user( i am guessing). Thanks a lot for all the help.

I am trying to password protect the database . I have the database on a public drive which i need to password protect. I went about doing that and in the process creating a new user packaging for which it would ask only me for a password. Whenever another person from another computer accessed the file , it wouldnt prompt a password. I am guessing the user was created on my machine only. I would like to create a password for the database for everyone accessing that file on located on that drive. SHould i just attach a password to the user "admin". Please advise!, Thanks for all the help so far.
 
Also , as of now Admin has no password. If i have to create a password for admin , it asks me for the old password in the change Logon Password tab. please help!
 
i assigned a password for Admin. When i try access the database from another computer , it doesnt prompt them for a username and a password. I dont understand.
 
This is because you have only assigned a password to the Admin user in *your* MDW file. Each user has their own MDW file.

Ed Metcalfe.

Please do not feed the trolls.....
 
Ok, how do i make it in such a way so that the password is assigned to everyones mdw file?
 
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