User level Security, Encode or Encrypt

Question

I am using Windows 7 and Access 2007. We have a 2000 DB that we are trying to convert to 2007 but, we can't get past security, I added myself as an admin to the mdw DB. I tried to set up permission in the database but I get "To change permissions for this object, you must have administer permission for it". I put a copy in my personal drive and made myself owner and full control. I tried to convert it or save as a 2007 file but I get "You are trying to convert an encoded database. Decode the DB, and try again. So I try to decode and get "You can't decode a database that you didn't create or don't own. See the owner of the database or your workgroup administrator. The only problem with that is the owner no longer works for the company. I was going to try to import everything into a new DB but I don't have permission for that either. I thought maybe I could just click on the queries and rebuild them in another DB but I don't have read design permission. I also tried to create a new mdw file with no luck. I have tried everything I can think of. My question is, Is there a way to get around security? I really don't want to start from scratch.

Thanks

Answer 1

You need to REMOVE all permissions from the 2000 DB BEFORE trying to convert.  So that means going in as an admin and then running the security tools and deleting all user groups and restoring back to just the generic admin user in the admins group and no special permissions applied.  Then you should be able to IMPORT everything from the file into a new accdb file.  I would NOT use the SAVE AS feature.  Importing may mean having to go back and set some options but it is the cleanest method to get it to the new format and without issues which do occur if you do the conversion.