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databasems-accessvbams-access-2016

Find what DB or files an .accde Access executable file references?

I'm trying to troubleshoot an old access DB my company still uses but no one can tell me anything but where the executable is. Is there any way I can at least get some sort of info about what it's trying to do?

Solution

  • For effective troubleshooting, you really need to get the ACCDB which was used to create that ACCDE.

    If the ACCDB is not available, and you want to see which external data sources are used as linked tables, you could use DAO methods from another database to connect to the ACCDE and inspect the Connect and SourceTableName properties of items in its TableDefs collection.

    And you could inspect the Connect and SQL properties of the QueryDefs collection to see which of them reference external data sources directly (instead of via linked tables).

    But if the ACCDE includes VBA procedures which interact with external data directly (instead of via linked tables or saved queries), you can't examine those procedures because the VBA source code is discarded when an ACCDE is created. You really need to get the ACCDB.

    Finally, without the ACCDB, you will be severely limited in what fixes you can make. You really need to get the ACCDB.