Securing Access Application

[Ed Nelson]

This is probbably a dumb question, but this seems like the best place to get an answer

I have an application that I developed using MS Access 2003 Professional and VBA. I now have a few customers that want to buy the application. What can I do so that they can't share my great application with all their friends? If I use the Developer Extensions, is there something there that will handle this situation

I should mention that ideally I would be able to assign demo licenses -- that expire after 30 days or some period of time. I am also concerned about data being sucked out of my database because part of the value of my database is the data that I have gathered together.

 

[Albert D. Kallal]

There is not much you can do about not allowing people to get at your data.
I mean, if your applications can open the data..then likely users can get at
it.

What can I do so that they can't share my great application with all their

friends?

There is not a lot you can do short of purchasing some licensing system.

However, why not set it up so that for each company you sell it too, their
name appears on the main form..and also on top of every report. I done this
for years.

So, yea..they can copy the application to another company..but all the
reports etc will show the name of the original company you sold the
application to.

There is also some great tips and ideas for demo at:

http://www.granite.ab.ca/access/demo.htm

I am sure that you of course do things like ship a mde..and hide the
ms-access interface from the users. If you do this right...then your users
don't even have to know that is it ms-access. I am sure if you are close to
wanting to sell your application..then it was long ago that you hide all of
the access interface anyway...right? You also no doubt long ago split your
application..and have code to re-link tables etc built in..right? If you
answered no to anything in this paragraph..then you are not ready for prime
time!

Here is some ideas on using custom menus in ms-access:
http://www.attcanada.net/~kallal.msn/Articles/UseAbility/UserFriendly.htm