Another suggestion or two:

Think about the future, after the initial backup/restore, detach/attach; updating production can be tricky. Make plans on how changes will be performed to production. ...

Are you trying to pull data together from both databases and have it appear as if it was just one data set?

If so, have you trying a UNION query?

Example:

SELECT t1.field1,...

1.  You can have your front-end database use a DSN file that is located on your network.  This avoids touching every 200+ workstations.

2.  Alternative method is creating your application using...