Upgrading from MS Access 2013 to 2016, incrementally (1 Viewer)

Alc

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Our IT department has decided that the whole company is to upgrade from Access 2013 to 2016.
Unfortunately, this will be done over a 7 - 10 day period, meaning that some people will be running 16 while others are still running 13.

Everyone has their own front end file, so the fact that the references will change for some before others isn't as much of a problem as it would be if they shared a front end. Where I'm curious (nervous?) is what effect, if any, it will have on the shared back end file?

Hypothetical situation: User A is running his own front end under Access 2013, User B is running his own front end under Access 2016

1. If user A accesses the back end and user B accesses it at the same time, will this have any bad effects?
2. If user B opens and closes the back end directly, will this change user A's ability to later open it using their front end?

We've had a few occasions where the back end file has gotten into an 'inconsistent state' and I'm worried it may have been caused in some way by the two version thing.
 

Ranman256

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I should not affect anything.
tho, if they upgrade all of office , then version change may interrupt access if you have
Excel or Outlook as REFERENCE objects.
Access will throw an error at start saying something stupid like LEFT() is not a legal function.
In VBE (alt-F11), tools , references: look for the item checkmarked MISSING.
the missing item may be MISSING Excel v11 object..., but just uncheck it and check the new version Excel v12.

Just make sure everyone has their own copy of the Front end to stop 'inconsistent state' errors. No sharing.
 

Alc

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Thanks.

I split everyone out into their own front end a while back, so that's covered.

The other Office items (word, excel ppt and outlook) are already at 2016, they held off on Access.
Back when they jumped from 2003 to 2010, the references caused a few headaches. this is why I'm wary about the latest move.
 

Cronk

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I currently support one site where one PC, because it has other legacy software on it, is running quite happily with an older version of Access, at the same time as other users with a later version of Access.

if they upgrade all of office , then version change may interrupt access if you have
Excel or Outlook as REFERENCE objects.

The upgrade will be seamless to users. Any references to other Office software will be automatically updated by Access. Unfortunately, the opposite does not happen. That is, if the references are set to later versions of Office object libraries, and the FE is copied to a PC with an older version of Office, then there will be run-time errors when the FE is opened.

I had one user that had his FE running on his networked home drive. He couldn't understand why the application would run on one PC but not another. It was due to different versions of Office, with the references set to the latest causing issues with the PC running the older version of Office.
 

Galaxiom

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I suspect your company is wasting a fortune on Access licences. Only developers should have the full version. Everyone else should be using the free runtime version.
 

zeroaccess

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I suspect your company is wasting a fortune on Access licences. Only developers should have the full version. Everyone else should be using the free runtime version.
If it's part of the Office Suite that is installed on all the machines, not much you can do about it.
 

Galaxiom

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There are multiple versions of the Office Suite. Access is only included in the most expensive of them.
 

Alc

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I suspect your company is wasting a fortune on Access licences. Only developers should have the full version. Everyone else should be using the free runtime version.
You may be right, but that's a little above my authority. Everyone here gets it.
 

Alc

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The upgrade will be seamless to users. Any references to other Office software will be automatically updated by Access. Unfortunately, the opposite does not happen. That is, if the references are set to later versions of Office object libraries, and the FE is copied to a PC with an older version of Office, then there will be run-time errors when the FE is opened.
We had this issue just after I came here. Everyone was running Office 2003 and they upgraded to 2010. The various databases had been built not only with the front and back ends in one file but with everyone accessing the same file to do work.
The first time someone who'd been upgraded to 2010 opened a db, it rendered it useless for those running 2003.
Splitting it into separate front and back ends and giving everyone their own front was viewed as unnecessary but I was finally able to convince them to let me do it.
 

gemma-the-husky

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one other thing - I know that A2003 can't send emails when outlook is O365 - Well, I can't find a way to do it - Clearly A2003 can't open an .xlsx file either.

I don't know whether A2013 (or A2007/A2010) will have a problem managing other parts of a higher version of office. If it does, it may give you a temporary issue.
 

gemma-the-husky

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We had this issue just after I came here. Everyone was running Office 2003 and they upgraded to 2010. The various databases had been built not only with the front and back ends in one file but with everyone accessing the same file to do work.
The first time someone who'd been upgraded to 2010 opened a db, it rendered it useless for those running 2003.
Splitting it into separate front and back ends and giving everyone their own front was viewed as unnecessary but I was finally able to convince them to let me do it.

@Alc - this is more likely an issue because multiple users are sharing the same copy of the database. You should split the database, and make sure each user has a distinct copy of the front end, and you wouldn't then have this problem.
 

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