Opening an Access Form from a hyperlink

Question

We currently have an ASP/SQl Server system, which has an option to send an e-mail to a user. This e-mail contains a hyperlink to another ASP page, which shows a specific database record.

I'm currently working on a resilience version of the system, which is MS Access based. The user's would like to keep the same functionality, and have an e-mail which contains a hyperlink back to the database, opening a specific form and filtering it to a record.

I believe the solution lies somewhere in using Command() to get the parameters from the command line, however I am actually having difficulty currently opening the database itself. The code i'm currently using is:

<a href="C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\OFFICE11\MSACCESS.exe 
    H:\Access DB\11th March\Link to DB\Dealer 
    Startup Admin EU v10.mdb" > 
    TEST 
</a>

I think this should open the Dealer Startup database, however it is failing stating the file cannot be found. If I remove the second step i.e. H:\Access DB etc. the link opens Access, so I am wondering if i'm doing something syntactically incorrect? The file path definitely seems right.

Also would someone be able to give some advice on the use of /c in a hyperlink? The small amount of information I have found seems to suggest it doesn't work but if someone could clarify or give me an example of how to do it I would appreciate it

Thanks,

Chris

If web pages could launch any program they wanted like this, it would be a huge security hole. — Diodeus - James MacFarlane, Mar 12 '13 at 15:41
Have a look at [this question](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/2800081/how-to-run-an-external-program-e-g-notepad-using-hyperlink) — RichardC, Mar 12 '13 at 16:51
"The users would like..." I guess this is an opportunity for the users to learn different software characteristics. — Smandoli, Mar 12 '13 at 18:32
mellamokb: yeah this will be run on an intranet with the database stored on a shared drive SoupyC: thanks i'll give that solution a try and see what happens — Chrisrs2292, Mar 13 '13 at 08:12
Ok so I just tried the solution SoupyC posted but it didn't work, it failes with an "Unspecified Error". So basically it can't be done? — Chrisrs2292, Mar 13 '13 at 14:01

Chrisrs2292 · Accepted Answer · 2018-06-01T07:11:27.303

I managed to create a solution to this problem. I could not find a direct way to open the Access DB from a hyperlink, however you can hyperlink to a shortcut. The workaround I therefore used was to create a shortcut to the database using the following syntax:

"file path to ms access" "file path to database" /cmd Args

so for example:

"C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\OFFICE11\MSACCESS.exe" "C:\Documents and Settings\Database.mdb" /cmd Args

Creating a shortcut to this file path opens the database. I then created an autoexec macro which opened a specified form if the Command() function returned Args. This meant that when opening the database normally you would be taken to the usual form, but when opening from the shortcut you will be taken to a different form.

I then created the e-mail hyperlink to the shortcut.

score 0 · Answer 2 · answered Nov 18 '20 at 08:53

I have created a batch file to delete browser history for MSIE and kept it on the server-side. When the user clicks on 'delete browser history' hyperlink, I just make him download this file, and the user runs it manually. You can also do something similar.

Opening an Access Form from a hyperlink

2 Answers2