Access 2002 & 2010 on the same PC, solutions....

[fatboy123]

Hello,

A few years ago I converted a POS DB to Access 2002 from Access 97, Now I've purchased Access 2010 and trying to learn it but it's conflicting with Access 2002 in that every time you open any of them they have to go thru a installation process, and I can't have this as it needs to be open all the time for the customers in the shop. I googled it and it seems there is no way around this, so my question is...

1- I know I can install the 2010 in Microsoft virtual machine but it seems awkward that way, so is there an earlier version of Access that I can install that will be compatible with 2010 and not go thru that installing process? My PC is Windows 7 Pro.


2- Also if you might say that I can do it with Access 97, can I convert my 2002 DB back to 97 easily?


Any other options?



Thanking you in advance.

Bobak.

 

[Pat Hartman]

As you have discovered, Microsoft's children don't play well together. They are constantly fighting over control of the registry and I don't believe you will have any better success with using newer/earlier combinations. To minimize your pain, use only A2010. This works since A2010 will run the A2002 database and even allow you to make modifications. Then you would only need to fire up A2002 if you wanted to test how the app behaves when running under A2002.

A word of warning. If you are using Vista or newer, the "Installing...." process requires administrator permissions and if you don't have them, the swap will be incomplete and what ever Access version is currently in control may in fact be incorrectly installed and run into trouble. As a developer, I solve this problem by creating shortcuts to each Access version I have installed and set them to run as administrator. When I want to change versions, I open the shortcut and then when Access opens, open the database. If I know I'm not changing from the version currently in control, I just double click on the database. On a user computer it is more of a problem. I try very hard to not allow them to have multiple versions since they are too likely to open apps from different versions at once and I am terrified to think of what problems that might cause.

 

[cw3k]

If you must have both install, you can install one non virtual machine. Vmware or virtualbox

 

[fatboy123]

Thanks very much Pat, trouble was that the 2010, although able to open the 2002 version, but did not display some forms with subforms correctly and my custom menu bars and switchboards were all messed up, I guess I'll just have to resort to VM then.

Thanks again.

Bobak.