How to Run Microsoft Access with Split MDB Files

Many Microsoft Access users are aware that Access uses a single MDB file to store both the data and the front-end used to access the data. While this works perfectly for a single user, the moment you have to use this file for multiple users, you might wonder what is the most efficient way of making this file available for all the users. After all, you cannot go around distributing vital data to all the users when all they want to do is view the data. This is where the concept of splitting the MDB file and using it in a multi-user mode helps. Working with split MDB files improves efficiency and also protects data, reducing the chances of corruption in the MDB file or having to carry out an mdb repair.

Let us first understand the concept of a split database. Most system and database administrators seem to overlook the fact that MS-Access by its very nature as software has two parts to it - the data part and the application part. While with most other applications, it seems obvious to store the main documents on the server and install only the application part, say Excel or Word on individual workstations, it is not followed in many cases for Access. It is therefore important to remind users that just as the data part can be placed in a shared server folder while the application that provides access to the data is placed on each computer, the MDB file can also be split up into two parts. The data part can be stored in shared folders and the front-end used to access the data. While an mdb repair may not be able to restore the front-end, adequate backups of the data should ensure that all the important information is well protected.

For a single user, the fact that Access stores both the data and the applications in one main file can be very handy. One does not have to think about dealing with each of these separately during development and it is also easy to take regular backups of the main MDB file. However, the moment the database has to be made available to many users, it is more useful to split the MDB file into two parts - the back-end storing the data and the front-end with all the forms and queries. It is also very easy to split the file into two using the Database Splitter tool from Access.

If all your data is stored in one file, you can take backups of that file to make sure that during an mdb repair, you can easily restore all the important data. In fact, even if the backups fail, it is quicker to restore the data from a split file using third-party tools such as Advanced Access Repair from DataNumen. While recovering queries and forms from a corrupt front-end can be tricky, Advanced Access Repair can easily recover all the tables and records from the tables in the same structure as the original file, minimizing the loss of mission critical data.