file size of access databse decreases? random

[gomes.]

I have been using access 2003 at my work place.

When I bring back my access 2003 project from work back home, i open the project at home, I am using access 2002 or 2000 format.

Then I notice if I save a copy of my work using access 2002, while initially using an access 2003 database, the file size decresaseas dramatically, from like 3mb to 800 kb?

any reason why?

No data seems 2 be lost.

Cheers!

 

[tehNellie]

You have compact on close ticked on your home copy of Access?

Access likes to create a lot of junk in the .mdb file while it works which isn't visible to the end user. If you don't compact and repair (or compact on close) then the file will grow substantially larger than the contents of the database tables would suggest likely. It's one of the reasons those of us who used to administer file servers in the days before Disk space was cheap as chips used to hate access, you'd get an uncompressed 200mb database that had 200 rows of data across a couple of tables (slight exaggeration maybe).

 

[gomes.]

mhmm... thanks for ur reply, how do I check the compact on close ticked?

cheers!

 

[KeithG]

go to Tools/Options/General

 

[ByteMyzer]

tehNellie,

while you are correct that Compact on Close will shrink the database size on close, this is a database-specific setting, and not the cause of the situation that gomes is seeing.


gomes,

Access 2002 does an apparently better job of cleanup than Access 2003. While all versions of MS Access have a bloat factor in relation to MDB files, A2003's effect seems to be far more pronounced than A2002. If you edit ANY file created with A2003 in an A2002 environment, the database size will go down significantly, even without the Compact on Close option set.