ms access accdb to accdr conversion

Question

Just a small question regarding the MS Access runtime version. I have an accdb file and I renamed it to accdr and tried to execute it in my runtime version but unfortunately I cannot open the file because I get a security authentication warning stating that the file I tried to open contains some unauthenticated content.

I've already tried the standard ways of conversion of accdb to accdr. I know the content is valid (created by me) so can anyone help shed some light on this problem.

Answer 1

First of all re-naming a file does not change what you have. I mean I cannot re-name a word document into an AutoCAD document and out of the blue you now have an auto cad application. So the “act” of renaming something does not change what is inside of the file.

So to state that renaming an accDB to accDR is some kind of “conversion” and you attempted such conversions is not how computers work.

Next you don’t state if you are running the accDR on your development machine or not. And even worse is what occurs when you simply copy the accDB to that machine and double click on it?

So keep in mind a few things:

If you install the runtime on a machine, then you can simply copy any mdb, mde, accDB, accDE and yes even an accDR and then simply double click on that file to launch/run that application.

THERE IS THUS ZERO REQUIREMENT to re-name the file as an accDR and doing so yields you NOTHING different then just having copied the accDB to that machine with the runtime and simply double clicking on that accDB.

So NO NEED exists to re-name the file as an accDR

However the error message about un-athenciated content is a different issue and NOT related to the accDR issue at all. You receive that error if you simply copy any access file to that machine and double click on it. So the solution to this issue is to ensure that the folder/location of the accDB file is in a trusted folder.

Last but not least: You REALLY (but REALLY REALLY REALLY) want to compile your accDB into an accDE. This should be done for any and all your applications before using and running them. More important is any un-handled errors when using runtime will SHUT DOWN your application if it is an accDB, but NOT if you use an accDE.

So re-naming the file to accDR does nothing, yields you nothing and is NOT required. About the only advantage of the accDR is its use for testing on your development machine since using that file extension will have access “emulate” or “mimic” the runtime environment. However since the target machine is runtime then this re-naming thus is not required and thus achieves ZERO effects on the results.

So you need to ensure that the database runs in a trusted location.

This explains how to do this:

http://office.microsoft.com/en-gb/access-help/decide-whether-to-trust-a-database-HA010341635.aspx

So you should in theory see/receive the security warning and be able to “enable content”.

You can also consider adding trusted locations to the registry, and perhaps even supply an exported “registry” file that can be clicked on the target computer to create that trusted folder.

So as a good general recommendation you need to FIRST compile your application to an accDE. The next step of re-naming to accDR is OPTIONAL and NOT required and DOES NOT change the application nor does it achieve anything of use when using the runtime.