Access Maintainer's primary purpose is to locate database files that are new or have been modified and compact them.
There are several ways this process can be started.

• Process Now - Selecting this option will start the entire process manually. Use this option to complete an ad-hoc compaction of your databases.
• Command Line - Using the /R command line parameter will complete exactly the same process as above, except that the program will close on completion. see command line parameters.
• Scheduled Start - The built in scheduling service can be used to complete the full processing operation on a regular cycle. see auto start.

Program Steps

The Access Maintainer software completes the following steps during processing:

1. Find Files - Each path in the search list will be searched including all subdirectories.
   
   
2. Check Files - Any files that have one of the specified filename extensions ie "mdb" or "mde" will be checked to determine whether it is has been compacted by Access Maintainer before and if so whether its last saved date or file size has been modified. Each file that needs to be compacted will be placed in a "processing list"
   
   
3. Sort - The files located in the previous step are then sorted into file size order with the smallest being placed first.
   This action may help where available disk space is low. Access Maintainer will be able to compact more files before the larger files are attempted.
   
   
4. Process - For each file in the "processing list", Access Maintainer will now test that the database is not currently being used by someone else. If the file is available it will record the version number.
   
   
   1. If the version number is 2.x and the Repair check box has been selected then the Repair operation will be performed.
   2. If the Compact check box has been selected the Compact operation will then be performed. This is done in the following steps:

   • Compact a.mdb to b.mdb - where b.mdb is a temporary copy of the database
   • Copy b.mdb to a.mdb - if the compact is successful the temporary copy will then replace the original database.
   • Delete b.mdb - if the copy is successful the temporary database will be removed.