From the course: Microsoft Access Essential Training (Office 2024/LTSC)

Understand the Access Trust Center

From the course: Microsoft Access Essential Training (Office 2024/LTSC)

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Understand the Access Trust Center

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- [Instructor] All Access database files have the potential to contain dangerous or malicious code buried within the macro-objects or visual basic modules. Malicious code could mess up your data, or worse, they can reach out into your operating system and wreak havoc on your computer's file system as well. If you're unsure of a database's origins, for instance, if you just downloaded it from a random internet site, you should be very careful about allowing them to run before you have a chance to check them out and make sure that they're safe. As a precaution, Access requires that you give specific permissions to every database file before it'll activate and run any code that might reside within the container. When opening up an existing database file for the first time, Access will display this yellow security warning bar below the main toolbar. There's a couple of different ways that we can deal with it. You can click on the X in the right hand side to dismiss this warning. Access will allow us to continue working, but it won't run any macros or code modules, and this could prevent the database from functioning properly. Alternatively, click on the Enable Content button to trust this particular file. Access will remember this database, and it won't ask us again the next time that we work on it. The final option is to click on the underlined link. That'll take us to a page where we can see more information. Clicking on the Enable Content button will allow us to enable the content, or get access to some Advanced Options. I'll choose the option to enable the content and that'll return me back to the main page, but you'll notice that that security warning has disappeared now. So, now this file is considered a trusted document. Trusted documents are files that you've previously granted access permission to run. We can also trust an entire location on our computer, and then any files stored in that location will automatically be trusted as well. I'd like to trust the Exercise Files folder for this course so that we aren't bothered with the security warning throughout the remainder of the course. To get there, we'll go to the File tab, and then come down and click Info, and that'll bring us back to the Security Information section. Here, I'll click on the link that says Trust Center Settings, then we'll switch over to the Trusted Locations page, and then finally, click on the button that says Add new location. Here, we can browse out to our file system. My Exercise Files are stored on my desktop, and I'll select that folder and press OK. You'll see it gets added to the path there. I also want to check this box that says, Subfolders of this location are also trusted. That way, the individual chapter folders within the Exercise Files will be trusted as well. If you want, you can add a description for this location. I'll just leave it blank and say OK, and that adds a new path up here into my Trusted list. If you ever need to modify this list or remove a location, you have to do that right here. Press the OK button, that returns us back to the Info page, and then I can click on the back button in the upper left hand corner to get back to the main interface. Now, if I were to close this file and reopen it, we won't be prompted to trust it again. Opening databases that you've created yourself or ones that come from featured templates usually aren't going to pose much of a threat, but if you are ever unsure about who created a particular database file, it's best to play it safe and explore its content before allowing it to run any code on your computer.

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