There will probably be better suggestions from the guys here with web experience, but it strikes me that you are tackling this, or rather you have been asked to tackle this at the wrong end.

Rather than changing the data collection end, which already works, and getting into locking and all the stuff, it would be much simpler to utilise the natural and effective serialisation that the email queueing does for you. Leave the current mechanism in place and write a script to service the email account via pop3 or whatever, and place the data into the flatfile with whatever encryption is appropriate.

Depending on your version of windows, you could probably just set the encryption property on the flatfile, run the email to flatfile perl program under a secure account and the system would take care of encrypting it for you.

If the flatfile to Access program is run under that same account, the decryption will be taken care of transparently also.

Just a notion.

Examine what is said, not who speaks -- Silence betokens consent -- Love the truth but pardon error.
Lingua non convalesco, consenesco et abolesco. -- Rule 1 has a caveat! -- Who broke the cabal?
"Science is about questioning the status quo. Questioning authority".
In the absence of evidence, opinion is indistinguishable from prejudice.

In reply to Re: Bad Idea? Questions of performance issues, file locking, and GPG by BrowserUk
in thread Bad Idea? Questions of performance issues, file locking, and GPG by hmbscully

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