1. On the File menu, click Open.
2. Click a shortcut in the left side of the Open dialog box, or in the Look in box, and then click the drive or folder that contains the Access database or Access project that you want to open.
3. In the folder list, double-click folders until you open the folder that contains the database.
4. To open the database in read-only mode, click the arrow next to the Open button, and then click Open Read-Only.

  Notes  

• You can open an Access project only in exclusive mode. If you attempt to open an Access project while another user already has it open, Access prompts you to open a read-only copy of the file.
• An Access project only contains forms, reports, pointers to data access pages, and modules. Tables, queries, and database diagrams are contained in the Microsoft SQL Server™ database or database engine that the Access project is connected to. Making an access project file read-only helps protect only the database objects in the project file, not in the underlying database.

In Windows Explorer, right-click the Access database file (.mdb) or Access project file (.adp), and then select Properties. In the Properties dialog box, select the Read-only check box.

 Note   This will make the file read-only, preventing anyone from making changes to the database objects in the file. However, be aware of the following:

• If the Access database or Access project contains data access pages, only the pointers to the underlying HTML files are made read-only. A user could still make changes to the underlying HTML files through any HTML-based editor, such as Microsoft FrontPage®, Microsoft Word, or even Notepad. Therefore, you should also make each page's underlying HTML file read-only as well by using Windows Explorer. To help protect the data accessed by the page, you must either employ security measures for the database that the page is connected to (see the following two sections) or configure Microsoft Internet Explorer security settings to prevent unauthorized access. For more information on Internet Explorer security, see Help in your Internet Explorer program.
• An Access project only contains forms, reports, pointers to data access pages, and modules. Tables, queries, and database diagrams are contained in the SQL Server database or database engine that the Access project is connected to. Making an access project file read-only helps protect only the objects in the file, not in the database.

To make all objects in an Access database read-only, you can apply user-level security to the database objects. Although setting up user-level security on most databases can be a daunting task, the User-Level Security Wizard makes it easy to quickly help protect your access database in a one-step process. Furthermore, by implementing common security schemes, the User-Level Security Wizard minimizes and may even eliminate the need to use the Security command from the Tools menu.

• To start the User-Level Security Wizard, point to Security on the Tools menu, and then click User-Level Security Wizard.