How to find the location or locations of a file in Microsoft Access

This article describes how to create a sample user-defined function that uses the FileSearch object contained in the Application object to locate a file on a particular drive.

The LocateFile() function takes the file that you are looking for as a string argument and returns all locations of that file. To create this function, follow these steps:

1. Start Microsoft Access, and then create a new database.
2. Create a module, and then type the following line in the Declarations section if it is not already there:
   Option Explicit
3. Type the following procedure in the module sheet:

   Function LocateFile(strFileName as String)
      Dim vItem As Variant
      With Application.FileSearch
         .FileName = strFileName
         .LookIn = "C:\"
         .SearchSubFolders = True
         .Execute
         For Each vItem In .FoundFiles
            Debug.Print vItem
         Next vItem
      End With
   End Function
   					

4. To test this function, type the following line in the Immediate window, and then press ENTER:
   ?LocateFile("Northwind.mdb")
   Note that all locations of Northwind.mdb are printed in the Immediate window.

Note: The LocateFile() function does not work properly if your computer runs only the Runtime version of Microsoft Access 2002.

For more information about using Visual Basic for Applications code tosearch for files, in the Visual Basic Editor, click Microsoft Visual Basic Help on the Help menu, type filesearch object in the Office Assistant or the Answer Wizard, and then click Search to view the topic.