Installing The Program - Workbench Help File

You will find the home page for the Access workbench at the following location

http://www.vb123.com/workbench/

On that page there is a section called Download and it will read something like the following. Find the Click Here link and click on it.

Download

The software is downloaded as a zip file that you will unpack on your computer. You will need Access 2010, 2007, 2003, 2002 on your computer. Save the zip file to a new folder. Sometimes you need to right click on the file and choose Unblock before running the install program. Once downloaded, see the readme.txt file in the zip file for the installation instructions. Once installed, click the start button, select programs and choose the vb123 program group.

Click here to download the workbench installation software and help file

The older version of the Workbench that supports Access 2000, 97 and mdw workgroup files can be downloaded here

Generally it is better to save the workbench.zip file to your computer rather than opening it as it allows you to reinstall at a later date if you wish (see Figure 1). Once you have downloaded the file, you will need a decompresion utility like WinZip but newer versions of Windows will come with support for Zip compressed files.

install1

Figure 1 - Save the file to your computer.

Once the download is complete, open the workbench.zip and double click the wb10_setup.exe file to install the software. You should probably open the readme.txt file that is in the zip for any recent installation news.

Installing The Software

To install the software, open the wb10_setup.exe program by double clicking on it. This will install the workbench program and related shared objects onto your computer. The steps that you will be guided through by the installation wizard are as follows.

Page 1 - Read an overview of the installation process, especially the section on closing other programs. Click on the picture in Figure 2 to see a full view of this screen online.

Figure 2 - Start of the installation sequence

Page 2 - read the legal conditions carefully and choose Yes to accept if you agree with the conditions.

Page 3 - You can elect whether you want to store the workbench in the vb123 start menu (recommended) as shown in Figure 3. You can also decide if you want to see the shortcuts on the desktop, send-to menus and the quick launch bar (your decision). If you decide to remove the Access Workbench from your computer, the uninstall program will remove these shortcuts. Read more how to use them.

Figure 3 - Choose the shortcuts for the workbench.

Page 4 - You can elect whether you want to associate the Access locking file with the workbench (recommended) as shown in Figure 4. Access does not associate this file type with any program, so this will not overwrite anything important. This action will make it both easier to find out who is using your databases (by using the workbench), but the new icon associated with the .ldb file will be easier to identify. This will help will notice if someone is using the database in the first place.

Figure 4 - Associate the workbench with workbench shutdown and message files

Page 5 - Visual confirmation about what is going to happen with when the software is installed (shown in Figure 5). This will occur when you choose the Next button on this form.

Figure 5 - The final confirmation screen before the software is installed.

Page 6. Once the Workbench is installed, you will be able to open the Workbench straight away by selecting the Yes Launch the Program file on this final page. To start using the program straight away, you will need to Review the Select database and Open database help and from then on, the software should work without too much hassle.

NOTE: If you have installed a version 4.0 or less of the Workbench, we recommend that you uninstall the previous version first. This will not affect your favorites. Find out your version by clicking the About button on the main screen.

How To Start The Workbench

If you are in Windows and you have databases with different versions of Access, you can use the Workbench to workout which version of Access to open. You can do this by right clicking on and database and choosing the Access Workbench (as shown in figure 6). Read more about how to start the workbench here.

Figure 6 - Start the Workbench from Windows Explorer

Uninstalling The Workbench

If the program isn't to your liking, you should uninstall it by going to menu Start ~ Programs ~ vb123 ~ Uninstall The Access Workbench (shown in Figure 7).

starting7

Figure 7 - How to uninstall the workbench.

You can also do this by pressing the Start button and choosing Settings ... Control Panel. Now click on Add/Remove Programs as shown in Figure 7 and select The Access Workbench. Choose Change/Remove and the software will be removed for you.