Errors after Office SP3 Installation

[MikeBromley]

I have just installed Office 2003 SP3 and have noticed that my application
written in Access 2003 behaves differently and doesn't always display fields
which have values.
I did not see this documented as an after-effect in the SP3 installion and
Knowledge Base article. Worse yet, you cannot uninstall SP3!!!!!!! You have
to uninstall Office 2003 and reinstall it and all the KBs except SP3!
Anybody know a fix for this???

 

[Ken Snell \(MVP\)]

By chance, the field to which the control is bound is a text field and has a
Format property setting for the field in the table? If yes, this is a bug
that has been reported by many ACCESS users during past week. MS is aware of
the bug and is working on how to fix it.

 

[MikeBromley]

Thanks, Ken. You are correct...text field etc. How do I find out when fix
is available? This application has been unchanged since December 2005 and my
users need the app badly. With it broke, they can't do anything. So, I need
to get it fixed ASAP. Is there a workaround?

 

[Ken Snell \(MVP\)]

I do not know what the timing will be for a fix to be issued by MS.

What type of control are you using? If a textbox, do you need to have edit
capability for the data, or is it just to display?

 

[MikeBromley]

Thanks again, Ken! Since you pointed me to the source of the problem, the
workaround is to remove the format character ">" on the field in the table
design. Then, the field displays properly as it always did pre-Office SP3.
This is good to know, but is of little help, since I use a template design to
create a BE database for each new client. Therefore, I have hundreds of
databases with the table field format set to ">". AND, since I have
installed them using a package wizard and only the Access runtime, I, nor the
users, have any way to modify those databases. Alas, I will have to wait for
the fix, but I at least know what is causing the problem. Again, thak you
very much for your time and consideration.

Mike Bromley

 

[Ken Snell \(MVP\)]

Yes, the "complete workaround" is to remove the Format property's value.
Otherwise, concatenating the field's value with an empty string also seems
to "overcome" the problem.

We'll likely post info here in the newsgroups when MS releases a fix and we
learn about it.

 

[Pat Hartman \(MVP\)]

You can write VBA that opens specific forms and removes the format property
from specific fields. The code will run under the runtime engine as long as
the database is an .mdb rather than an .med.

The only thing that the runtime doesn't support is modifications made via
the GUI as you do when you are developing.

 

[MikeBromley]

Thanks again to both Pat and Ken for their time and direction and
suggestions. As for me, my app is an .mde file, so unless I want to
reinstall it everywhere, writing some VBA to remove the format property is
not available. HOWEVER!!!!!! Even though MS says you can't uninstall Office
2003 SP3, I used System Restore and restored my system and the other affected
systems to a restore point previous to the SP3 install and that solved the
problem. Now, all I have to do is make certain none of my users re-install
SP3 until an acceptable fix comes out. For all of you following this thread,
you might consider this.

Mike Bromley