Hide Access
By Richard Rost
21 months ago
Customize MS Access: Conceal Database Interface In this Microsoft Access tutorial, I will show you how to professionally mask the Access interface to impress your clients with functionality while dispelling biases. From custom startup forms, shortcuts with unique icons, to splash screens, we tackle it all in a straightforward, actionable checklist. This tutorial is designed to elevate your database, making it look less like Access and more like a bespoke software solution. Stay tuned for how to streamline your applications aesthetic. Shane from Evanston, Illinois (a Platinum Member) asks: How can I showcase the capabilities of Microsoft Access without making it obvious that I'm using it? Some of my customers don't realize how powerful and awesome Access really is, and they prefer software built with other tools. I want to highlight the functionality and strength of the software I create without drawing attention to it being built in Access. I definitely wouldn't lie about it, and if asked, I would be honest, but I'd rather they see the quality of work first without any biases. LinksUp NextNotesCHECKLIST:
Startup Form (Main Menu)
Put DB in it's Own Folder
Make a Shortcut to the DB with Custom Icon
Set Application Title and Icon
Turn Navigation Pane Off (File, Options, Current DB)
Optional: Turn Full Menus, Shortcut Menus Off
Database Spash Screen (BMP in DB Folder)
Hide Ribbon and Status Bar (VBA Code on Startup)
Make Sure ALL Errors are Handled
Debug, Compile the Database
Compact It
Make an ACCDE File
Install Access Runtime
Keywords TechHelp Access, concealing database interface, custom startup forms, unique shortcut icons, Access splash screens, disguise Access database, professional Access UI, hide Access identity, Access interface customization, removing Access ribbon
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Transcript
In today's video, I'm going to show you how to make it so that people who are using your database don't necessarily know that it's Microsoft Access. Because there's a lot of haters out there, and of course, haters are going to hate. They don't like Access because they heard this or that; it's not a real database or whatever. So, in this video, we're going to show you how to hide it so your database doesn't look like Access. This is a question I get all the time from lots of different people. In fact, I've done several videos in the past that are going to show you some of what I'm going to talk about today. But in today's video, we're going to put it together in one nice checklist so you can just run down the list and make sure you cover everything.
Here's the most recent question I got asked from Shane from Evanston, Illinois, one of my Platinum members. He says, "How can I showcase the capabilities of Microsoft Access without making it obvious that I'm using it? Some of my customers don't realize how powerful and awesome Access really is, and they prefer software built with other tools. I want to highlight the functionality and strength of the software I create without drawing attention to it being built in Access. I definitely wouldn't lie about it, and if asked, I'd be honest, but I'd rather they see the quality of the work first without any biases."
Yeah, Shane, I've actually got a story of a client that I worked for years ago when I was still building custom databases.
I'll never forget this one. I met with the owner of the company and his computer guy, some hardware network consultant he hired, an IT guy we'll call him, right? The IT guy said to me, "I heard that Access isn't going to be around much longer, so we'd prefer a custom-built solution that doesn't use Access." So, I spent a good half an hour trying to convince this guy that Access is awesome and wonderful, but he wasn't sold on it, and the owner was just kind of sitting there shaking his head through the meeting. So finally, I said, "Look, I'll put together two proposals for you, one with Access and one with a solution just built in VB." And that was great; we all shook hands, bye.
Well, later on, the owner called me up and said, "Look, don't listen to him. You're the database expert; you build whatever you think is best." And of course, I built him an Access solution. I just hid the interface; you couldn't tell the difference. Now, this is going back to, I'm going to say, around 2010, and he's still using it, 14 years later, he's had zero problems, and he actually fired that IT guy a couple of months later. But that's a whole different story.
So yeah, there's a lot of people out there that are going to hate on Access. Don't listen to them. We all know how great Access is. So in this video, we're going to go down a whole list of things you can do to make sure that it doesn't look like Access as much as possible. Yeah, if someone's a computer expert, they're going to figure it out. There are ways around all of this. But to the average user, they're not going to know it's Access.
All right, so the first thing is, make sure you've got a custom startup form, main menu; that's easy to do. Now, I've got videos that explain how to do most of this in depth, so I'm going to link to you down below in the description all of the other videos I've got that cover this stuff. And of course, make sure you watch my blank template video as well. I cover a lot of the stuff in there too, how to set the main menu. Okay, here's my TechHelp free template. This is a free database. You can grab a copy off my website if you want to. Setting up your main menu is easy. It's just a form with some buttons on it. That other video will describe it in detail.
And all you do is go into File, then Options, and then under Current Database, you set that as your display form. Now, I didn't set it as a display form here because I'm using an AutoExec macro, and that other video explains this. Because the AutoExec macro also checks to make sure that the database is in a trusted folder. That's a whole different video. I'll link to this one down below also; if you haven't watched it, you're going to have to set it up in a trusted folder; otherwise, your users are going to get error messages, but that's a whole different video. So go just watch this one.
Alright, next, we're going to put the database in its own folder, and of course, if it's something you're setting up on a network, you're going to split it; set up the backend folder on the server, set up a folder for the frontend. I've got whole separate videos on splitting databases. What we're going to do then is put the database in its own folder, the front end too, right? And we're going to create a shortcut to the database with a custom icon because with this icon, you can obviously tell it's a Microsoft Access database. So, make a folder, right, new folder. Wherever you want to put it, I don't care; I'll call it DB for my database folder. Put the database in the database folder, okay? Now go in the database folder, and I'm just going to name this, let's call this RixDB for Rick's database. You want it to be a nice simple name. You'll see why in a minute. Now we're going to make a shortcut to this on the desktop. I create shortcuts here, and you can just change that to just RixDB if you want to as well; it doesn't have to say shortcut on the end. You're going to need a custom icon. You can use one that you find online, or you can make your own in something like Windows Paint. You don't have to make an ICO icon file; you can just make a bitmap file. I cover that in my other video, Setting the Database Title and Icon. So go watch this video for more information.
So once you've got your icon, and I'm also going to grab my splash screen while we're in here. We'll talk about the splash screen in a second. This one and this one, we're going to copy those. We're going to go back to our database folder, and we're going to paste those in here. All right, paste. Okay, now this is what we're going to use; the icon and this is going to be our splash screen, and I'm going to rename, let's see. This one we can leave as $, I'm going to rename this one so it's RixDB.bmp, you'll see why in a second. Okay, now we're going to make $ the icon for the shortcut. All right, right-click on it, go to Properties, go to Change Icon, browse. Now when the Browse window comes up, come down here and change this to All Files. Now it's still browsing to my old location, but I'm going to go to the database folder which is on my desktop. And then pick that guy, and then hit Open, and then OK. And there you go. Now we've changed the desktop icon. That's the easy part. That's simple.
Okay, now the splash screen is this thing. It's another bitmap I made. You can make it in Paint. I think I made this in PowerPoint, and I just screen capped it and saved it as a bitmap. Again, I've got a whole other video about this. Go watch this video on creating splash screens and how they're used. But essentially, it's another bitmap with the same name as the database file, with BMP on the end of course. Now, I'm going to close this. Watch what happens when I open up the database. Instead of seeing the Access logo, you'll see my custom splash screen. There it is. It showed up really quick. Did you see that? I'll do it again. My computer's been running really slow the last couple of days. I'm going to do some optimizations. Come on. Come on. There it is. It shows up real fast, but you're not seeing the Access logo. That's the important part. All right, so that's the splash screen.
Yeah, I know I'm jumping around a little bit. You don't have to do this in any particular order, okay? All right, so we've got the splash screen set up. Let's set up the application title and icon. All right, application title and icon. That's going to be in our database. Now, obviously, you want to set up anything inside your database. You're going to get rid of this logo. You're going to change this, okay? But we're going to go to File, Options, go to Current Database right here. Application Title, RIX Finance database, and then your icon can be the same thing that you just picked a minute ago. All right, and again, it's on my desktop DB. Again, you've got to come down here and pick either bitmaps or all files. There it is. Hit OK. And you can also use this as the form and report icon inside your database if you want to, instead of seeing these things. That's up to you. Okay. Hit OK. See? There you go. Okay. Rix Finance DB is up here. Most importantly, down here on your taskbar, this is what your Access application looks like now. You get a little custom icon there instead of the Access logo on your Windows taskbar.
Alright, next up, we're going to turn the navigation pane off and optionally turn off the full menus and the shortcut menus. Alright, this is the navigation pane. We're going to hide this. Your users got no business in there anyway. We're going to create an ACCDE file later, so they can't even come in in design mode anyway, and you're going to give them buttons to do whatever they need to do in there. We're also going to turn off the ribbon. We're going to turn off the right-click shortcut menus. You don't have to. You can leave any of this stuff on that you want to, but I suggest turning it off and giving them buttons inside your application to do all this stuff. This is all stuff I cover in my simple security video if you want to learn more about this stuff. But you're going to again go into File, Options. You're going to turn off the display status bar'that's the thing on the bottom of the window. Scroll down a little bit down here, turn off the navigation pane. If you want to turn off the ribbon, turn that off there and the default shortcut menu, turn that off there. And again, you'll have to give your user a programmatic way in your code, in your database, with buttons and stuff to do the stuff you want them to do, like filters and sorting and all that stuff. Hit OK. Close and reopen the database.
Okay, there we go. Tomorrow in part 2. So come on in. Tomorrow in part 2. So tune in tomorrow. Same bat time, same bat channel. Or, if you're a member, you can watch it right now because members can watch stuff immediately as soon as I record it, which I'm going to do right now. So yeah, stick around. Tomorrow we're going to talk about hiding that ribbon and the status bar with a little bit of VBA code, make sure all the errors are handled, debugging, compiling, compacting, making an ACCDE file, and we'll talk about installing the Access Runtime. But that is going to be your TechHelp video for today. I hope you learned something. Live long and prosper, my friends. I'll see you tomorrow for part 2.
TOPICS
Creating a custom startup form
Setting the main menu as a display form
Ensuring database is in a trusted location
Splitting the database into a front end and back end
Creating a database shortcut with a custom icon
Creating and using a custom splash screen
Setting up the application title and icon
Removing the default logo from the database interface
Configuring form and report icon settings
Turning off the navigation pane
Disabling the display of the full ribbon and shortcut menus
Turning off the status bar display
Quiz
Q1. What is the purpose of creating a custom startup form for your Microsoft Access database?
A. To make the database look more like Microsoft Excel
B. To confuse users with complex navigation
C. To hide the fact that you're using Access from users
D. To increase the loading time of the database
Q2. What should you set as your display form to ensure your Access database doesn't look like a typical Access interface?
A. Any existing table
B. The main menu form
C. A random query
D. Microsoft Access splash screen
Q3. Where should the Access database be placed to avoid user error messages related to trust?
A. In the recycle bin
B. In a random folder on the network
C. In a trusted folder
D. Anywhere on the desktop
Q4. If you're deploying an Access database on a network, what is an essential step in the setup process?
A. Transform the database into an Excel spreadsheet
B. Write a detailed user manual
C. Split the database into front end and back end
D. Rename all tables and queries
Q5. What must be created to change the default Microsoft Access icon for your database?
A. A new database file
B. A custom bitmap or ICO icon file
C. A text document with icon code
D. A copy of the default Access icon
Q6. What is the role of a splash screen in customizing your Access database?
A. It increases security by adding an extra login screen
B. It replaces the Access logo while the database is opening
C. It provides a list of recent updates to the Access software
D. It is a screen saver that activates when the database is idle
Q7. What should be adjusted in Access options to change the application's title and icon?
A. The Personalize settings
B. The Quick Access Toolbar settings
C. The Current Database settings
D. The Proofing settings
Q8. How can you hide the Navigation Pane in an Access database?
A. By deleting it from the database
B. Through File and Options under the Current Database section
C. By creating a new Navigation Pane
D. Using a password-protected VBA script
Q9. What is the benefit of turning off the full ribbon and shortcut menus in Access?
A. It simplifies error reporting
B. It forces users to memorize keyboard shortcuts
C. It prevents users from accessing design elements they don't need
D. It improves the database performance significantly
Q10. What should you do to prepare an Access database for part 2 of the tutorial discussed in the video?
A. Wait for Microsoft to release an update
B. Turn off the computer and restart it
C. Ensure all the settings from part one are properly configured
D. Set up email notifications for database changes
Answers: 1-C; 2-B; 3-C; 4-C; 5-B; 6-B; 7-C; 8-B; 9-C; 10-C.
DISCLAIMER: Quiz questions are AI generated. If you find any that are wrong, don't make sense, or aren't related to the video topic at hand, then please post a comment and let me know. Thanks.
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