How can I decrypt or gain access to a protected Access database?

Question

I\'ve taken over an old software project which uses an MS Access database to store its data. However the database won\'t open in Access as it says:

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Answer 1

The chances are pretty good that the .mdw file is the workgroup file for that .mdb database. (The .mdw file does not need to have the same name as the .mdb file because several different .mdb files can all share the same workgroup security settings.)

To access an .mdb file that has user-level (workgroup) security enabled you need to open it using a shortcut (or command-line invocation) of the form

"C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office14\MSACCESS.EXE" "C:\Users\Public\uls\ulsTest.mdb" /WRKGRP "C:\Users\Public\uls\Security.mdw"

For a more detailed write-up, take a look here.