We have a quite big software with a few MS Access projects (accdb, mda, mdb) with lots of forms and code in it.
We have a tool that takes an Access file (accdb, mda, mdb) and disassembles it into text files (each form, report, module, class, … is one file). And we have another tool, that creates a new Access file and puts all the text files as objects back into the Access file. Everything works fine.
Now we want to secure our code with a signature certificate (re-invented feature of MS Access). For that you need a suitable certificate, then you open the VBA editor of your access file and choose the certificate to use under Tools | Digital signature…
Every time you change code in this Access file, it gets signed automatically (when the certificate is present on the computer).
But here’s the problem. I changed our tool to put together an Access file from the text files to not create a new Access file. Instead it takes an empty Access file (that I provide) that is already signed and imports the objects into this. So far, so good…
But I assume that Access signs either all the code or at least the new code every time a new object is imported, and that takes time. So, the time needed to assemble an Access file blew up from 55 seconds to 27 minutes.
So, my question is, is there any way to choose the certificate for the signature in code? Either in VBA code or in external code like .NET (using Access.Interop)?
That way I could assemble an unsigned file the old way, and only sign it after it is assembled completely.