Question Access 97 runtime on Office 2007

[ptalkad]

Hi, I'm part of a team investigating and building a knowledge base on the affects of converting Access 97 databases into runtime and rolling it out as part of and Office 2007 upgrade to desktop systems. The Office 2007 will go in WITHOUT the Access 2007. If anyone has done a similar exercise or have any tips on known issues, please let me know.
cheers
P

 

[Mike375]

Pat,

Is the reason for conversion of all macros due to macros not having error handling?

 

[Atomic Shrimp]

I think the OP is asking whether installing Office 2007 - without Access 2007 - is going to foul up the existing installation and function of Access 97.

I'm reasonably sure it shouldn't - as long as the installation of Office 2007 is performed carefully, and includes the option to install in a different path from the existing Office applications.

I haven't done this with 2007, but certainly with previous versions of Office, it was possible to install a new version in a distinct location, leaving the old one in place - some confusion arose when launching shortcuts and databases directly - as the OS will fire up whichever version of Access was last used, and would see itself as freshly-installed each time...

... But in the case of an installation of Office 2007 sans Access, with Access 97 remaining in place, that shouldn't be a problem - as long as there is a custom install option in there that allows you to leave A97 alone.

 

[wiklendt]

my take on the questions was this:

"we want to install office 2007 (without access) but we still want to run our access databases. we heard you can do that using a 'runtime'. will this work?"

i assume they want to completely remove previous versions and install Office 2007, but for whatever reason (probably price?) not include access (of any version).

i don't know anything about runtimes, but i presume you'd need the 97 runtime, and i'm not sure if it's still available. i have no idea whether the 2007 runtime will work for you, that's for a guru to answer. my assumption is that it should work, but i heard there are some major differences between 97 and 2007, and i'm not sure how precious the runtimes are to holding to those differences.

this thread here, has a discussion on differences between 97 and 07, and links to the free AC2007 runtime files, so you can check if your db's work with it on a test computer which doesn't have any access or office installed on it...

 

[wiklendt]

oh, one more thing, i'm not sure that runtime will allow you to make changes to a database. in fact, i'm not exactly sure what runtime CAN do, so maybe google it.

your other option is to remove all 97 components EXCEPT access, then install 2007 EXCEPT access. this will effectively give you word, excel, powerpoint 2007 and access 97. i don't see why this would not work. i had a computer at one time which was running different components from different versions - a little messy in control panel, but did what i needed, and none (seemed to) clash with any other component.