Can Access 2010 create a db readable by 2007?

[goodfu]

A friend of mine has Access 2010. The .accdb databases that it makes cannot be opened on my Access 2007. But he has no way to back-convert it to 2007. There's a 2003 option, but no 2007. Why?

 

[GinaWhipp]

Access' default format is Access 2007 format, hence no need to convert back to 2007. As long as he uses no features that belong soley to Access 2010 then it should be no problem.

From what you are describing it sounds like he is using features that were not available in Access 2007. What happens if he makes a copy and converts it back to 2003?

 

[boblarson]

Make sure that he does not apply any THEMES to any of the forms or reports. That will put in a table which then cannot be used by Access 2007.

 

[goodfu]

A 2003 version was created and opened successfully in Access 2007. Seems like you could create a 2007 version, but you can't. This database plays some sound files. I don't know of any features other than that that would cause it not to open in 2007.

 

[Banana]

In *theory*, you would be able to create 2007-friendly files with 2010.

In practice, however, I feel that it's far too easy to slip up and introduce 2010-only entities like Bob mentioned about themes and thus rendering the "2007" file format 2010-only.

For this reason, if you develop with 2010, you're probably far better off distributing 2010 runtime to your users (it's free anyway) and that way you get all the goodies of 2010 anyway, OR stick to 2003 MDB file format which doesn't have this issue.

 

[GinaWhipp]

Since the 2010 version created a 2003 version then the odds of it having 2010 features rendering it unable to open in Access 2007 is nil. Not sure why it wouldn't open in 2007 but glad converting it to 2003 worked.

 

[goodfu]

Can anyone state for certain that you can open in 2007 a database without 2010 features that was created in 2010? Feel free to post a simple 2010 database and I'll try to open it.

 

[ted.martin]

This link helps; it does work too.

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/office/cc907897.aspx