The fix for the Access 2013 version of the bug is KB2965317. We have a professional license (a bargain at $500/year if you do any network admin work), but the steps below should work within the constraints of the free version. If you are not familiar with PDQ Deploy, I encourage you to check it out. The good news is that I was able to push out the manual fix just as efficiently using PDQ Deploy. The bad news was that PDQ Deploy had pushed the buggy security update out to dozens of computers. PDQ Deploy: Efficient Deployment of Both the Bug and the Fix Moral of the story: make sure to check in with everyone in the IT department about recent updates before going crazy with your troubleshooting. I completely ignored the Access 2013 Runtime installs, as I did not realize the security update had just been pushed out in my client's environment. I mistakenly assumed that it must have originated with one of the handful of users with a Click-to-Run (C2R) version of Access. I recognized the error message immediately, but it took me quite awhile to identify the source of the error.

After this update is installed, Microsoft Access databases that are stored on a network share can't be accessed by multiple users simultaneously. In this specific situation, the sudden outbreak of the bug at our client could be traced to a manual rollout of the Office 2013 Security Update, KB5002104.

The Patch that Broke the Access 2013 Runtime However, that changed yesterday when I got an email, a voicemail, and many, many automated bug reports announcing the arrival of the 2021 Holiday Bug. Whenever a user with an affected copy of Access connects to a backend database, then any other user that attempts to connect to the same database receives the error, 'File already in use.' Until recently, I had managed to avoid this error as most of our clients use the Access 2013 Runtime to run our applications. As I've already written about, a December 'Patch Tuesday' security update from Microsoft introduced a bug that affects shared Access database files.

Access 2013 free download