One advantage that Microsoft Visual C++ and Visual Basic developers have over Microsoft Access developers is that when their program starts, the DBEngine object isn’t yet initialized. This allows the program to set important properties such as the SystemDB property (which sets or returns the path for the current location of the workgroup information file), and the DefaultUser and DefaultPassword properties (which set the user name and password to use for default logon). In Microsoft Access, however, the DBEngine object is already initialized when you start, and none of these properties can be changed. Even in Visual Basic, you may want to open a database that uses a different workgroup information file, without having to start a new application through Automation to do so.
There is a new object called a PrivDBEngine object, which is a new, uninitialized copy of the top-level DBEngine object, with its own objects and collections beneath it. You can use the PrivDBEngine object to open a database that uses a different workgroup information file, to determine whether a database is opened exclusively, and to determine whether you can open a database exclusively.
To create a private DBEngine object, declare an object variable as type PrivDBEngine, and then use the Set statement with the New keyword, as shown in the following code:
Dim dbe As PrivDBEngine Set dbe = New PrivDBEngine