Question

I was hoping to save all open MS Access documents via a JScript run from the Windows Script Host.

So far I was able to obtain the MS Access object by calling:

var objAccess = GetObject('', "Access.Application");

But now I’m stumped. If it was MS Word, I’d enumerate all open documents in the .Documents property and call Documents.Item(n).SaveAs() method on each of them.

But how do you save-as all open documents in MS Access?

Answer 1

After you have your object variable set to an Access application instance with GetObject, use its Quit method with the acQuitSaveAll option (value = 1). Not sure about JScript; in VBScript, I can do it like this.

Dim objAccess
Set objAccess = GetObject(,"Access.Application")
WScript.Echo objAccess.CurrentDb.Name
objAccess.Quit(1) ' acQuitSaveAll
Set objAccess = Nothing

Note, when I used GetObject as in your example, objAccess was a new Access application instance rather than a reference to the instance which was running previously. So, with the GetObject line like this …

Set objAccess = GetObject('', "Access.Application")

… the WScript.Echo line threw an error with CurrentDb.Name (because there was not a database open in that Access application instance.

This approach will save any changes to database objects (tables, forms, reports, etc.) which were in design mode but not saved. However if a user has any unsaved changes to data in a form, those changes will be discarded despite the acQuitSaveAll option. It seems that option only applies to objects, not data.

Edit: If that approach is not satisfactory, you can do something more sophisticated with VBA in your Access applications, as @Remou mentioned in his comment. An example is KickEmOff from Arvin Meyer. He also offers a sample database which demonstrates that code in action.

Edit2: Remou’s comment got me thinking acQuitSaveNone (value = 2) should be safer than acQuitSaveAll … the unsaved object changes would be discarded, but at least you would be less likely to save an object in a non-functional state.