You do not connect to a power-point file, you open it.
You do not connect to a word file, you open it.
You do not connect to a text file, you open it.
And wonders of wonders, just like the rest of office, the same applies to an accDB file sitting in some folder. You NEVER connect to a windows file, you need rights + permissions to open that file. In fact you need the WINDOWS networking system to open such a file.
The goal here is you need read + write permission to that windows file on the windows computer.
You cannot connect to one computer to open a file on another. (unless you adopting something like remote desktop – but that that is a 100% different question).
So you DO NOT make some database connection, and you CAN NOT make some database connection.
You MUST HAVE the ability to open the file, and the technology layer MUST be compatible with the windows operating system. So for example if the file was placed on a Linux box, then you would have to install a windows networking system (Samba) and ALSO setup a mapped drive, or the very least a VPN (Virtual Private Network). The folder thus needs to appear as a mapped drive, or alternately appear in your network neighborhood, and you browse to the computer on that remote network, and then open folders on that computer and ONLY THEN can you OPEN the file.
Again, I repeat:
You ARE NOT connecting to a file, you need windows file system to OPEN the file. Using the term “connection” in place of opening a word file, an Excel file, or in this case an accDB file makes no sense.
You can certainly use a socket based technology like TC/IP to connect to a web server, or a database server. However in this case you are SIMPLY requiring to OPEN a plane Jane windows file, and that file on the target computer MUST have the windows networking system that allows you to open that file with the windows file system. There is no concept of “connecting” here.
Of course the other issue here is such connections are slow – about 100 times slower then your typical office network. You REALLY need to read the following article of mine to realize this limitation and speed issue:
http://www.kallal.ca//Wan/Wans.html
Now that we cleared up that you don’t connect to a database, but all users MUST be able to open the file.
Assuming they are on the same network as you state, then simply have users browse to the folder where the database resides and they can double click on it.
If you using PHP, then ANY and ALL connection strings will in fact resolve to a STANDARD windows file location. Assuming all users on your network have direct use of the file, then the path name in your PHP string to open this file will be:
\\IP-address\folderName\myDatabase.accDB
As noted, the users will need full rights to the above file and folder. If the PHP is running via a web site, then the computer running the web site will require full rights to the folder on the network, and as noted they ALL WILL have to be part of the same windows network. Of course if they use a web site, then ONLY the web site will require direct windows networking and file open ability (but again you require a direct file location and open ability via windows networking from that web server).
