Is it possible to suppress MS Access "Security Warning" prompt without signing the project?

Question

Background: One of my coworkers has a project that is written in VBA to use MS Access 2003 Run-time as a front-end for a MSSQL database. It's an internal project used by multiple users operating in terminal sessions on a Server 2008 R2 box.

Problem: Every time the Access project is opened, users are greeted with a Security Warning:

This file may not be safe if it contains code that was intended to harm your computer.

They have the option to Cancel or Open. The users would like to be able to skip this prompt.

Since the full version of Access is not installed, users cannot alter their individual security levels and the VBA project cannot be signed with selfcert.exe certificates. (I'm not sure that it would work for multiple users anyway?).

Ideal fix: I'm hoping there's GPO or registry key that alters security settings for Access Runtime, but am open to other suggestions. I'm sure the problem could be fixed by purchasing a license for the full version of Access and a certificate from an approved CA, but this project doesn't have any budget for it.

Update: Have confirmed that the guy who put this project together did it in Access 2003 and does not want to re-test for Access 2007/2010 runtimes. So we're stuck with 2003 Runtime.

Answer 1

Very late answer, but it might help someone. There is a way to do this. I created a shell for my Access apps (originally just to auto update my applications), and during this discovered you can completely workaround Access 2003 security (& 2007 etc with Remou's Trusted Locations).

Set the SecurityLevel in the registry, run the mdb via commandline, reset the registry. Root: HKCU; Subkey: SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Office\11.0\Access\Security; ValueType: dword; ValueName: Level; ValueData: 1; Check: IsAccInstalled('11.0'); Flags: dontcreatekey Level 1 = Low, No action; 2 = (Default) Medium, Prompt; 3 = High, Deny?

You can also run your mdb with COM, setting the SecurityLevel via COM before opening the mdb. However COM wont work for runtime (and you cant identify the OS process later via a unique commandline as I needed to)

Answer 2

Answering this one just to say that no, there doesn't appear to be a way to avoid the security warning for Access 2003 Runtime without actually signing the project.