install Access 97 along with 2003..?

[nycdon]

I have office pro 2003, and doing some development non-profit with Access
97...can I install Access 97, keeping my 2003 intact?

 

[Allen Browne]

Yes, you can have both on the same computer. Many of us do.

There are a few gotchas:

1. Make sure you do a custom install with multiple versions, so you can
check they go into different folders and don't uninstall each other. (Should
be fine for your case, but worth checking.)

2. You may have versioning problems with things like the Calendar control or
MS Graph.

3. There is a problem where Access 97 refuses to start, complaining "There
is no license..." If you strike that problem, see:
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;141373

4. If you double-click an mdb in the Windows Explorer, it will probably try
to start in whichever version you ran last, since both versions check and
register themselves when they start.

5. If you convert an A2003 version back to A97, it will sort out the Access
and VBA references correctly, but it may leave the DAO library at 3.6.
That's wrong for A97, and can give you problems if you don't manually set it
back to 3.51.

 

[George Nicholson]

Isn't installing them in chronilogical order another gothca? (i.e.,
uninstall 2003, install 97, install 2003)

 

[Douglas J. Steele]

Tony Toews reports deliberately installing them out of sequence with no
problems.

 

[Allen Browne]

Me too.

George, you are correct that MS recommends installing them in chronological
order, but I regularly do otherwise. Even tried A2003, A97, and then the old
A2.

 

[George Nicholson]

Interesting. OK, thanks for the info.

 

[BT]

Yes, I always install in reverse order into individual folders. After each
installation, I temporarily rename the exe file to MSAccess.aaa and delete
the hatten font. After the final Access version install, I restore the exe's
to their original names, then establish my prefered default Access version
and file type associations.