Upgrade from Office XP to 2003

[R Marko]

I just bought a new computer and upgraded from Office XP to 2003. Everyone
else in my office is using XP. For now, I have kept a copy of my previous
version of Access and am afraid to open or make the changes using 2003.
1. Will everyone else be able to use the database if I make the changes
using 2003?
2. How will the database be affected if we are using different versions of
Access?
Rhonda Marko

 

[Douglas J. Steele]

You shouldn't have any problems.

The default format of both Access 2002 and Access 2003 is actually the
Access 2000 format. (Look at the database window: the format should be shown
there).

Even if it's in Access 2002 format, they should be compatible.

 

[Allen Browne]

There should be no problem with you using the database in Access 2003,
though you could run into problems with references (e.g. if you used the
Outlook 10 library instead of late binding.) More info on references:
http://allenbrowne.com/ser-38.html

If you are modifying the forms, reports, or modules in Access 2003, I
recommend that you decompile it before the Access 2002 users try to use it.
A2003 uses a different binary than 2002. In a perfect world, if you compiled
in with A2003 and someone opened it in 2002, A2002 would discard the binary
and recompile to the older binary format. In practice, this does not work
perfectly, and you may see weird bugs that make no sense. Decompiling before
switching back to the old version avoids those problems.

To decompile:
- Close Access.
- Open a command prompt.
- Enter something like this. (It is all one line, and include the quotes):
"c:\Program Files\Microsoft office\office\msaccess.exe" /decompile
"c:\MyPath\MyDatabase.mdb"
Then compact the database in A2002, and recompile (Debug menu from a code
window.)

 

[matkivskij]

I just bought a new computer and upgraded from Office XP to 2003. Everyone
else in my office is using XP. For now, I have kept a copy of my previous
version of Access and am afraid to open or make the changes using 2003.
1. Will everyone else be able to use the database if I make the changes
using 2003?
2. How will the database be affected if we are using different versions
of
Access?
Rhonda Marko