I've been handed a train wreck and I'm supposed to sort through the wreckage and find the program underneath. VBA and Access aren't really my thing. Are there any really good web sites I should know ...

5 seconds in google tells me that you can call Access with the "/compact" command line switch. Also, there's a KB article at support.microsoft.com that give further details.

Historically, malicious Office macros have been the equivalent of email’s phishing attempts, launching malware at the click of a user’s mouse. But Microsoft unexpectedly has reinstated VBA macros ...