Microsoft Access, running on Windows XP Home under Parallels cannot open .mdb files located on shared folders. It can create a new .mdb file on the shared folder, but once the file is closed in Access it cannot be reopened. The error message reads: Microsoft Access cannot open this file. The file is located outside your intranet or on an untrusted site. Microsoft Access will not open the file due to potential security problems. The Windows firewall is turned off. On the Security tab of the Internet options control panel applet, when I try to add the folder to the trusted sites list of the Local Intranet zone the path appears to get modified. e.g If I add file://machine-name/S:/ to the trusted sites list, closing and reopening the control panel applet shows the path to be file://macine-names: Has anyone been able to work around this mess?
The way I do it is to set the Security Level to Low for everthing except for Restricted Sites. Not sure which one really does the trick, but probably Intranet. Since I don't work outside of my VMs in windoze (except to download m$ stuff), I just ignore security - ymmv.
Security already set to Low I had already set the security level to low when I first encountered the problem. No joy there.
...but that doesn't solve the problem! Moving the files to the VM's hard disk works, but then these files are not accessible when the VM isn't running. They need to be on a shared network resource so that they can be accessed from other Windows machines on the LAN. Parallels needs to fix their networking so the VM actually networks.
...seemed like a good idea but it doesn't work. I tried sharing the folder vis SMB, but XP running on the Parallels VM can't open it. About 10% of the time it pops a login dialog (that never successfully connects). ...but most of the time it just goes away without so much as an error message. Sometimes I get a "you don't have permissions...." message, but not often. Other Windows machines on the LAN have no trouble connecting to the SMB share on the Mac though. It looks like the Windows networking on Parallels is just flat broken. This is a workgroup LAN not a Windows Domain.
I haven't tried a shared folder, but I can run Access in a VM and open databases on other machines over the network, so opening one on the local HD via a network connection should work.
Actually not, this is an XP problem. It happens in native windoze too. There is a level of paranoia built into Access 2003+, that wasn't there before, that is causing the problem. If you ask for help when you get the error message, one of the myriad of help options will lead you to the solution. Sorry I can't remember exactly what it is, but it's really obscure.
