Posted: 3/30/2010 10:55:02 PM EDT
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Among the many items I retrieved from 9Millie's on Sunday was several CDs of AR stuff. Lost knowledge. All but one of them still works. Someone, I can't remember who, collated the old mailing list messages into an MS Access db and put it, and the reader software, on disk. IIRC, he sent out copies to all of the contributors. When I try to load it I get a "software out of date" warning (she has the latest Access on her pc) with a "send an email to email addy" message and when I try to get into the cabinet file for the messages I get a password window and "password" doesn't work. The files on the disk are all ca. 1999. I have never worked with Access. Any hints? Email is [email protected], I've got a message out to him.  |
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I know this won't help you, but I'm going to make the point anyway.
Don't store your data in proprietary formats! Convert it if you need to, but use something easy to deal with. Like plain ASCII files. M$ is famous or screwing you into forced upgrades to maintain access to YOUR data. don't fall for it next time. When you get access to the data, dump it all out into text files. IIRC access database file protection is pretty simple, it isn't encrypted, so there should be a tool to strip off the password available someplace. |
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The software really isn't the issue, thats the easy part, its the password. There are a number of ways to get at it. Find someone that used to know it and waterboard them until their memory improves. Brute force guessing, straight forward or a dictionary weighted attack. Depending on the length and complexity of it, it could take billions of iterations. Open the cab file using a hexidecimal editor and poke around for clues. |
the [email protected] email bounced with a "User Unknown." time for whitepages I guess. |
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Quoted:
I know this won't help you, but I'm going to make the point anyway. Don't store your data in proprietary formats! Convert it if you need to, but use something easy to deal with. Like plain ASCII files. M$ is famous or screwing you into forced upgrades to maintain access to YOUR data. don't fall for it next time. When you get access to the data, dump it all out into text files. IIRC access database file protection is pretty simple, it isn't encrypted, so there should be a tool to strip off the password available someplace. Tweak - If you want to come over to the pound this weekend, I can try and get this working. Now to the other part. 
Disclaimer - I do work for the softdrink factory. Take this for what you will, and this is my opinion, not that of my employer or anyone else. BULL-FUCKING-SHIT Microsoft has never forced anyone to do an upgrade to maintain access to your data. Something made with Access 97 will be able to be read in 1998 and 2008 by Acces 97. And now Microsoft completely describes the document format. Even newer versions of Office are still able to read documents written by older versions. Office Open XML The only time you may need to upgrade is to read a document saved by someone with a newer version of the software. |
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Quoted:
Quoted:
Don't store your data in proprietary formats! Convert it if you need to, but use something easy to deal with. Like plain ASCII files. M$ is famous or screwing you into forced upgrades to maintain access to YOUR data. don't fall for it next time. newer versions of Office are still able to read documents written by older versions......The only time you may need to upgrade is to read a document saved by someone with a newer version of the software. Don't worry, several of us already pointed that out.  It's wasn't the softwares problem. The only person who thought it was makes his living working "for" the competition.
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