BTW, were the words in my response to Sonic too big for your little mind to
comprehend or are you just plain ignorant? Here is the first part of my
response ----

"Check two things. First is the database split into a front end and a back
end with the backend on the server and a copy of the front end on each
station. It sounds like the database is one file and all the users are
running it over the network. This will give you the problems you describe.
Second, look at the programming in the database. Are records being
constantly added to temp tables and then later deleted. This is a sure cause
of bloating."

In the scheme of things I contributed to the newsgroup. Your response
contributed absolutely zilch. In the future, if you don't have anything to
contribute, don't waste the newsgroup's time and keep your little mind and
your ignorance closed.

Steve
PC Datasheet

You should immediately work on getting this split and having each user with
his/her own front end on their workstation and the back end on the server.
This is considered a requirement by most if  not all Access developers and
experts.

Jim

Sonic, you're missing the major point.  You should not have multiple
instances of the same mde open at any one time.  Make individual copies
for each user and have them operate it from their PC.

Here's what I do in such cases to prompt users to do their own
compacting when the mde/mdb gets a bit large.

I use a custom menu and create a menu or tool bar (depends on what you
want).  When in edit menu mode I hold the control key down (make sure
you do this or you will regret it -see hereafter as to why) and click on
the Compact & Repair menu item (found in Tools->Database
Utilities->Compact & Repair) and drag it to my tool bar.

If you don't hold the control key down when doing this, your standard
menu "loses" the Compact & Repair menu item!

I then change the caption to "Optimization of <App Name> is STRONGLY
Recommended!", or something similar, and put an image there - my
favourite is the little bell from the Change button Image menu item when
right clicking a menu item in customize menu mode.

Next, I run a routine like the following on start up - usually on a
splash form's on open event, though I suppose you could put it in a
module and run it from an autoexec macro if you wanted:

Dim strPath as string 'location of front end
Dim lngSize as Long 'size of front end

'Check for overall file size
'If larger than recommended size, make compact menu item visible
'otherwise, make it invisible

strPath = Access.CurrentDb.NAME

lngSize = FileLen(strPath)

If lngSize > 5000000 Then

   CommandBars("mnuMain").Controls.Item(6).Visible = True

Else

   CommandBars("mnuMain").Controls.Item(6).Visible = False

end if

In the above example, the commandbars lines assume there are 5 other
menu items on my custom menu bar "mnuMain" before the compact menu item.
 Adjust as per your own application.

With respect to the size the FE must be before the user is prompted,
what I usually do is compact the finished front end and then set the
lngsize "trigger" above to twice that of the compacted size.

The above is for a front end.  Like your SQL back end, I usually write
my apps against non Jet (in my case, Oracle) back ends.  Similar code
can be constructed for maintenance of Jet back ends, though of course
the menu on action function will be a procedure using the
CompactDatabase command....

HOW TO: Detect User Idle Time or Inactivity in Access 2000 (Q210297)
http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=210297
ACC: How to Detect User Idle Time or Inactivity (Q128814)
http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=128814

However we found that the code which runs on the timer event must be disabled for the
programmers.  Otherwise weird things start happening when you're editing code.  

Also print preview would sometimes not allow the users to run a menu item to export
the report to Excel or others.  So you had to right click on the Previewed report to
get some type of internal focus back on the report so they could then export it.
This was also helped by extending the timer to five minutes.

The downside to extending the timer to five minutes was if a person stays in the same
form and at the same control for considerable parts of the day, ie someone doing the
same inquiries, the routine didn't realize that they had actually done something.
I'll be putting in some logic sometime to reset this timer whenever they do something
in the program.

Tony
--
Tony Toews, Microsoft Access MVP
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