Chapter 26: Bulletproofing Access Applications
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Note
Don’t sign your Access project until the application has been thoroughly tested and you don’t expect to make
any further changes to it. Modifying any of the code in the project invalidates the digital signature.
Tip
To prevent users from making unauthorized changes to the code in your project, be sure to lock the project
and apply a project password.
The Trust Center
The Trust Center is where you can find security and privacy settings for Microsoft Access. The
Trust Center replaces the Security dialog box in previous versions of Access. To display the Trust
Center, click the Microsoft Office Button and click Access Options to open the Access Options dia-
log box. Select the Trust Center tab, and then click Trust Center Settings.Here’s a description of each section and what it controls:l Trusted Publishers: Displays a list of trusted publishers — publishers where you clicked
Trust all documents from this publisher when encountering a potentially unsafe macro —
for Microsoft Office. To remove a publisher from this list, select the publisher; then click
Remove. Trusted publishers must have a valid digital signature that hasn’t expired.
l Trusted Locations: Displays the list of trusted locations on your computer or network.
From this section, you can add, remove, or modify folders on your computer that will
always contain trusted files. Any file in a trusted location can be opened without being
checked by the Trust Center. You can also choose not to allow network locations and to
disable all Trusted Locations and accept signed files.l (^) Trusted Documents: When Trusted Documents is selected, the name of the Access appli-
cation is added to a special area in the system registry on the user’s computer. Then, each
time the application is used, it is recognized as a trusted document, and all the macros,
code, and other elements of the application are enabled without interrupting the user’s
workflow.
l Add-ins: Lets you to set up how Access handles add-ins. You can choose whether add-ins
need to be digitally signed from a trusted source and whether to display a notification for
unsigned add-ins. You can also choose to disable all add-ins, which may impair functionality.
l (^) ActiveX Settings: Lets you set the security level for ActiveX Controls.
l Macro Settings: Lets you set the security setting for macros not in a trusted location. (For
more information on Macro Settings, see the previous section on sandbox mode.)
l DEP Settings: Allows you enable Data Execution Prevent mode.
l (^) Message Bar: Lets you set whether to display the message bar that warns you about
blocked content, or to never show information about blocked content.