Solved Broken references

[Guus2005]

I have an application written in Access 2013. Ported to Office 365 64 bit.
In that application there is a reference to the Word Library 16.

I had some complaints about the application and when i opened the application in Access 2013 i saw that the reference to Word was broken.
I added a reference to the Word Library 15. And the problem was solved.

When i open the application in Office 365 the reference now shows Word Library 16.
When i open the application in Office 2013 (other computer) the reference now shows Word Library 15.

So the references are automatically adjusted to the appropriete currently installed Word Library version.

It is not a recurring problem afaik. But how is it possible that references are sometimes broken?

 

[Minty]

The safest route is to use late binding, which will avoid the issue of the references completely.

 

[isladogs]

When you change to a later version of Access the references should be updated automatically
However, that doesn't normally happen when changing to an earlier version. It doesn't recognise the later version reference resulting in a broken reference.

As Minty said, late binding solves the issue completely

 

[The_Doc_Man]

But how is it possible that references are sometimes broken?

Any Windows or Office update can replace one file with another. Normally the references are by path\name, but if there is ever a GUID reference (say, in the registry), the reference resolution code within Access could get confused - because changing the file changes the GUID.