Thinstall can be used to protect Microsoft Access Database Files (.MDB) from outside access. This is accomplished using Thinstall's cache encryption feature:
Using Thinstall you can package your original EXE (1) with your .MDB file (2) to create a single EXE (3) that contains both files. The program runs in this state and the .MDB file does not need to extract to disk if read-only operations are performed on the database.
If your application performs write operations to the .MDB file, then Thinstall will (be default) cache ( what is caching?) the .MDB file to the hard drive as a "cache file" (4). You should turn on Thinstall's
cache encryption option to ensure that this data is always stored in the encrypted format.
MdbDemo.exe - original VB EXE that acesses the .MDB file
RelDemo.mdb - A Microsoft Acess .MDB file used by the EXE
protected_mdb.tsp - The Thinstall Project file (load this using Thinstall to build the EXE)
out/ protected_mdb.exe - This is the protected EXE built by Thinstall, it contains a protected .MDB file.
System Requirements - ADO must be installed
- VB6 Runtime must be installed
After running the application, you can compare the binary contents of the cache file with those of the original .MDB to see all data remains encrypted at all times.
