Access 2007 Template (.accdt) Files
The new template work we did in 2007 is awesome, but I know it is not obvious how you can customize the template experience. There was at least one question in the newsgroups about this already, so I thought I would offer this up here as well.
Template files in Access 2007 are a totally new file format based on the Open Packaging Convention which is also used by Word, Excel, and PowerPoint for the .docx, .xlsx, and .pptx extensions, respectively. Access's old template files used to be .mdb files renamed with the .mdt extension, but now they are a completely new format consisting of a hierarchy of zipped up XML and text files. This is great because it means they're open and transparent, and easier to work with programmatically from outside Access. However, it also means that creating a template out of an existing database file is a non- trivial task.
The easiest way to be able to create and share these template files yourself is by using the 2007 Access Developer Extensions (ADE) created by the Access team. The ADE adds a button to the Office menu which enables you to save databases as .accdt files, and it has the right price... FREE.
Once you've made an .accdt out of your .accdb, you can just double click on the file to create a new db based on the template. .Accdt files are natively compressed using zip, and great for distributing via the web or in email. You can also get the template to show up in your default getting started experience (the list of templates that shows when you first start Access) by copying it into your local user's template folder:
%APPDATA%\Microsoft\Templates
