How do I use Access 97 on a PC which has Access 2003, windows XP

[Maggie]

I have a library of books catalogued o n Access 97 on a software prog using
97. I now have a new PC with XP and Access 2003 and cannot access programme
or dat e though it is saved on PC.

 

[Douglas J. Steele]

What do you mean that by "cannot access programme". How are you trying to
use it?

Just for the record, I have both Access 97 and Access 2003 installed on my
Windows XP machine, and have no issues using both, even concurrently. A
"problem" is that the file association for .MDB (and .MDE) files will be
reset each time you use Access so that the most recently used version is
what will be used. You can get around that by creating shortcuts for each
database to use an explicit version of msaccess.exe, or you can open Access
first, then open the database, or you can get third-party products that will
determine the appropriate version to use to open each file.