What type of access did you want to maintain?

Logins are required to gain access to the server. Logins are also granted access to a database. Within a database, a login is mapped to a database user. Permissions on objects and statements are assigned to the user.

MSDE does not ship with any tools for configuring it. If you have the SQL Server Server Enterprise Manager (SEM) available, you can connect to MSDE with it.

Configuring can be done programmically using the system stored procedures. If you're more comfortable with a language other than T-SQL, you can use SQL-DMO to configure and maintain MSDE.

-Mike