Security--users losing permissions they once had

[Janross]

Apologies in advance for the vagueness of this question.

I have a client with a secured database. Lately she says that some users who
could previously get into the system with no problem are now having trouble
getting in. Even my contact person, who has full privileges (she's in the
admins group) says that sometimes it won't let her in at all, or if she does
get in, it gives her "you don't have permission..." messages for things she
knows she should be able to do (after all, she's in admins; she can do
anything!).

I had her send me their mdw file and when I checked it out here, the
permissions seem to be correctly assigned. So now I'm wondering if there could
be some factor to do with their network or an individual workstation that's
somehow getting in the way.

I intend to go over there next week to check things out, but as I have no
network or hardware expertise, I'm not sure what to look for. I have asked her
the following questions (no answers yet):
- whether the problems are true on all workstations or just on some
- whether the problems are intermittent or consistent
- whether she can see any patterns in who has problems or when

Is there anything else I should be looking at? I hate to try to rebuild the
mdw file because of having to re-add all those users (no way to copy them,
huh?). BTW, they're mostly using A97, though some people now have A2000 and a
couple have AXP.

Their network support guy knows nothing about Access (plus he's so busy he
barely has time to even talk about this, let alone troubleshoot), and I of
course know virtually nothing about their network.

Any thoughts will be greatly appreciated.

Jan
Jan Stempel
Stempel Consulting

[TC]

Janross <ja*****@aol.com> wrote in message
news:20***************************@mb-m14.aol.com...

(snip)

I had her send me their mdw file and when I checked it out here, the
permissions seem to be correctly assigned.

Only the user & group names (& user/group relationships) are stored in the
MDW file. The actual permissions of each user & group, to each database
object, are stored in the MDB file. So there is no way you could have
"checked it out", using just the MDW file :-)

HTH,
TC

[TC]

Janross <ja*****@aol.com> wrote in message
news:20***************************@mb-m18.aol.com...

Only the user & group names (& user/group relationships) are stored in theMDW file. The actual permissions of each user & group, to each database
object, are stored in the MDB file. So there is no way you could have
"checked it out", using just the MDW file :-)

Duh! You're right, of course. But since the copy of the front end she's

using is one I recently sent her, I'd think it would be the same. Nonetheless, it's worth checking that out when I get there.

AND...if it all looks fine (which it did last time I checked, even there), any _other_ ideas?

I would wonder whether they are using different workgroup files under
certain circumstances without know that. You say they sent their workgroup
file, but the user generally does not know what workgroup file they're
using. Perhaps certain PCs have set the workgroup files as the default
workgroup file, but others have not done that & are using a shortcut
(including the /wrkgrp switch) to start the system? Those are some of the
things that I'd be looking at.

HTH,
TC