Upgrade From Office 2000 Pro to Office 2013 Pro

[ThePatch]

Was using user level security in access 2000 and of course .mdb database. Can i join a access 2000 workgroup and continue using .mdb database from access 2013. Not liking 2013 so far.

[Stewart Ross]

Sorry, support for workgroups was dropped some time ago (Office 2007 onwards I think) and is simply not supported at all in any version of Office greater than Office 2003. Office 2013 has its own peculiarities, but the lack of support for workgroups happened well before 2013 was released (which is no comfort at all if you must use your workgroup to continue using your database).

You can of course still use the .mdb database itself, but you will not be able to associate it with your workgroup and whatever user security it contains.

-Stewart

[zmbd]

Second Stewart's warning here!
See the link below covering the loss of ULS.


In Acc2013 ULS has been very well hidden.

You must use the MDB/MDE file formatting (Acc2000 - Acc2003); however, these formats will not allow a lot of the newer features in Acc2013 to work

The Workgroup administrator can be found in the ribbon if you REALLY dig for it... File>Options>Customize>User Level Security Wizard

Or
How to use the Workgroup Administrator utility in Access 2007

>>> Be very aware here... the level of ULS management you have in Acc2007 and newer is very limited! You in fact may not be able to do anything with the ULS depending on the age of the file; thus, don't get your hopes up as the only thing you may be able to do is to remove the ULS by converting the file to the newer file format(s).

All of this is a mute point...
Besides being extremely easy to bypass the old ULS model, now all your end user has to do is open the database file and save it in the new Acc2007/2010/2013 format and all of the ULS is stripped as shown here:
What happened to user-level security?

Finally, plan on moving your database files out of the Acc2000 format and to at least the Acc2003 format... or you risk having those files cutoff in the next version of Office just like what happened to the Acc97 format when Acc2013 rolled out. MS is forcing the issue... it's a pain in the rump to have to keep backward compatibility!


Oh... almost forgot... Command-line switches for Access! You need to create a shortcut, batchfile, or use the command line to use the correct workgroup (this worked for Acc2010, I haven't tested it with Acc2013 also, I have a Win8.1 os so your path will change)
"C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office 15\root\office15\MSACCESS.EXE" "C:\directory1\YourDatabase.mdb" /WRKGRP "C:\directory1\SecurityFileForYourDatabase.mdw "