If you’re building Microsoft Jet applications using a program other than Microsoft Access (such as Visual Basic or Microsoft Excel), you can secure your applications using DAO. This interface gives you much of the same functionality that exists in Microsoft Access. However, to create a secure environment, you must build workgroup information files with the Workgroup Administrator program (Wrkgadm.exe, installed by default in the \Windows\System folder). This utility ships only with Microsoft Access. Because of this, you must use Microsoft Access to set up the initial elements of a secured system.
Because Microsoft Access includes Workgroup Administrator, and because Microsoft Access has a full user interface for working with security, many developers using Visual Basic (or other programming environments that support Microsoft Jet) use Microsoft Access to establish and maintain security. Although you have full programmatic access to existing security through DAO, it’s often easier to use Microsoft Access to develop and maintain security in your application.
Additionally, the User-Level Security Wizard described in this chapter is included with Microsoft Access. If you want to use its functionality, you must use Microsoft Access.