Access 97 Install problem

[Jim Bunton]

Windows xp Media centre
New install following virus problem!
Drive C: reformatted befwore install
No errors prompted during install
Attempted access 97 install immediately after windows install
There is another partition on the dsic which contains access 97 & access
2000 .mdb applications
There is anothe disc which contains backups of the above
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At termination of install error:
Could not create WorkGroup Adminsuter file
Run MS Access Workgroup Administrator
Before running Access

Tried this - same problem
At the end of the dialogue could not create
C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM32\SYSTEM.MDW
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[Jim Bunton]

Got the answer on the windowxp.help_and_support news group after languishing
here for over a day with no reply.

Here's the Solution:
WindowsXp with > 1 meg ram is the issue.
received the advice below and it worked!!
-----start------------------------------------------------
If you have a PC with more than 1GB of ram then see the post below, about
half way down the list of replies:
http://bytes.com/forum/thread206045.html

JS
http://www.pagestart.com

PROBLEM SOLVED !!! Many thanks Geoff for the wonderfull tip regarding the
RAM bug ! Effectively the issue came from the "more than 1GB of RAM" error
existing in the older versions of Access. In fact this bug seems to have two
consequences :
- When you try to install Access 97 from original CD on a PC with more than
1GB of ram (XP SP2), the install fails ("can't create system.mdb")
- If you try to manually copy the system.mdb file from another PC then the
launch of access fails, still when having more than 1GB of RAM ("out of
memory" error).

As this can be useful to other, here is what I've done :

- Starting with a PC under XP SP2
- REMORE RAM from the computer, to go under 1GB (I've went down to 256MB to
be sure..)
- Install access 97 (no longer problem during the installation, but
execution still fails)
- REINSTALL RAM
- Download the MS Jet Database engine version 3.51 SP3 from microsoft.com
- Then Access is working again !

Many thanks again, without this newsgroup and without Geoff I am 99,99% sure
that I would still be locked with that issue, the Internet support is
greaaaaat !

Friendly yours,
Robert
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