Do not have permissions to use the MS Access MDB object

A user gotten a new laptop and tried to open an Access 2003 database copied from his old laptop.  Much to his dismay, the Access 2003 database failed to open with the following error message.

You do not have the necessary permissions to use the ‘C:\Demo\Test.mdb’ object.  Have your system administrator or the person who created this object establish the appropriate permissions for you.

This is got to do with the pre-Access 2007 security feature.  If you wish to know more about it, you can check out these two articles.

• Understanding the role of workgroup information files in Access security
• Microsoft Access Security FAQ

Here is how we got it resolved

We managed to find the workgroup information file (System.mdw) needed to open the mdb file and copied to the new laptop.

Created a shortcut with the following parameter.

"C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office15\MSACCESS.EXE" "C:\demo\Test.mdb" /wrkgrp "C:\demo\System.mdw"

• "C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office15\MSACCESS.EXE" is the full path to the MS Access executable.
• "C:\demo\Test.mdb" is the Access 2003 database file we are trying to open.
• "C:\demo\System.mdw" is the workgroup information file copied from the old laptop.

Double click on the shortcut and it opened the Access 2003 database.

Now that the Access 2003 database has been opened, the user wanted to remove the security.  He is not aware of the setup since it is an inherited thingy and the person created it is not longer with us.

Here is how we removed the security

With the Access file open, click on “FILE”.

Click on “Users and Permissions” and select “User and Group Permissions…” from the drop down menu.

Select “Groups” for “List:”. 

Select “Users” under “User/Group Name:”. 

Select everything under “Object Name:”.

For each of the object type (Database, Table, Query, Form, Report and Macro), you will need to grant all the permissions.  Below screen shots show the permissions for the Database, Table and Query object type.

Once you are done with setting the permissions, close the Access 2003 database.  Try re-opeing it directly without using the shortcut and it should open now.