Change password for a user in secured.mdw file

Question

I'm supporting a lot of old Access Reports and one of the reports authenticates its users against a Microsoft Access Workgroup Information file (Secured.mdw file).

Now, one of the users forgot his password and I need to reset it for him. I'm not the creator of that Secured.mdw file but I can open it and view the users.

This is what I've tried so far:

Step 1: Opened the database by double clicking the Secured.mdw file

Step 2: Viewed the Users. (For eg: I want to change password for user: bandaj1)

Step 3: File -> Users and Permissions -> User and Group Accounts

Step 4: I can't locate bandaj1 user. In fact, I can't locate any user other than admin user.

Am I even heading in the right direction?

Please suggest on how to go about changing password for users in Access Workgroup Information file.

Answer 1

I finally figured this out. The part that I was missing was that I had to specify which database to open with this .mdw file

Step 1:

Open the MyApp.mdb database using the .mdw file using this command:

"C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Office\Office16\MSACCESS.EXE" "C:\Program Files\MyApp\MyApp.mdb" /WRKGRP "C:\Program Files\MyApp\Secured.mdw"

Step 2:

Log in using Admin credentials:

Step 3:

File --> Users and Permissions --> User and Group Accounts

Step 4:

Find the user whose password you want to reset. For eg: I'm going with bandaj1 here.

Now hit Clear Password button. Click Ok and close the file.

Step 5:

Tell bandaj1 user to login without a password and tell them to set their own password.

Step 6:

bandaj1 user logs in successfully without a password now:

Step 7:

bandaj1 user goes to File --> Users and Permissions --> User and Group Accounts to setup a new password.

Step 8:

bandaj1 user selects Change Logon Password tab. And sets a new password:

bandaj1 user hits Apply and Ok to close the widow.

Step 9:

bandaj1 user's password is successfully reset, and he'll use the password he set in Step 8 to log in next time.