ShellExecute() returns error code 5 when trying to open mdb file >10MB

Question

I have an MsAccess 2003 application which is a dashboard to launching other MsAccess apps.

I employ the API ShellExecute to launch/open the MsAccess app as below:

lngReturn = ShellExecute(Application.hWndAccessApp, _
                            "Open", _
                            AccessMDBName, _
                            "", _
                            "C:\", _
                            SW_SHOWNORMAL)

When this code is deployed to a user's machine which only has MsAccess 2003 runtime installed, an error code =5 is returned when opening an MDB file >10MB I do not get any error for smaller MDB files.

Any idea what could be acting up?

Answer 1

To me it seems unlikely (but nothing is impossible) that it's the 10MB file size. Are the files in the same place? The Errorcode=5 means access denied. As part of starting Access an ldb file has to be created or updated. Is it possible that your files are in a different location and the person does not have write access to the folder that contains the >10MB file? Is C:\ the location of the mdb file? Some companies have policies that restrict write access to the root of the C: drive.

Answer 2

The root of the C:\ is probably not writable to the user.

What you can do is remove the c:\ and it will use the current working directory. al la:

lngReturn = ShellExecute(Application.hWndAccessApp, _
                            "Open", _
                            AccessMDBName, _
                            "", _
                            "", _
                            SW_SHOWNORMAL)

It may be that for the smaller files (and 10MB isn't that large any more) that MS Access can get away without having to write anything to the working directory.