Access 2010 and Access 2003 on the same desktop??

[edsac64]

Hi, is there a way to have both Access 2010 and 2003 exist peacefully on the same desktop. My company uses Office 2010, but my department has an Access 2003 application. As a result, I have to have A2003 on my desktop and use it quite frequently for this one application.

I have some small databases that I really want to move onto A2010 so we can take advantage of SharePoint functions, etc. Is there anytning I can do to be sure that the .mdb and .mde open in A2003 and the new .accdb opens in A2010, without getting errors and the Windows installer going through the Office installation process for the respective version? I've gone to the file locations and set the "Open with" setting to the respective version.

Thanks!

Ed

 

[Alansidman]

I have several 2002 databases (.mdb) that I open and run on AC2010. I have never converted them and there is no need to have the earlier version installed. They will run just fine in AC2010.

 

[gemma-the-husky]

ed

yes - they co-exist with no problems.

when you iinstall A2010 (and you can use an upgrade, as you have A2003) it will ask you whether you want to remove previous versions or not. don't remove A2003.

when you elect to use either A2003 or A2010 it will have to reinstall, if it wasn't the last version used. Bit of a pain. Databases will try to use the the last version opened, first.

A2003 is stored in c:\program files\microsoft office\office11
A2007 is stored in c:\program files\microsoft office\office12
A2010 is stored in c:\program files\microsoft office\office14

 

[Lightwave]

One warning point if you are doing fresh installs of multiple Access versions on a single computer

ALWAYS install in order ie 03 / 07 / 10

Installing in the incorrect order can lead to reference library problems.

Personally I try to avoid multiple versions on a single computer.

 

[Pat Hartman]

And lastly, since the various versions of Access fight over the registry, you MUST be running as Admin or the takeover will be only partially successful and you will end up with incredibly strange behaviors. To solve this problem when I was keeping multiple versions on a single PC, I created shortcuts to each version and set them to run with Admin permissions. I would then open the Access version I wanted and choose the database to open. This worked for me since I don't actually use the databases, I just develop them. For users, they should have only the newest version installed. Either runtime or full. They should not have older versions installed.