migration to 2007

[Darth Vodka]

all

i work in a team that supports ~100 Access databases (~90 of which are Access 97, ~10 are 2000) which are used thoughtout the day by 100s of people. several are business critical

IT are telling us that the migration to Office 2007 is imminent and they are going to switch off all office 97/2000/2003

my initial thought is: why? they can surely parallel run three versions of Access (i have done this...)

another thought is: ouch, we're in trouble

most of the team, when faced with an error, amend the live 97 version then tell them to come out/back in

(yes, i know terrible design, wasn't me!)

also, we're boned because only i have actually BEEN in Access 2007, let alone used it much

oh and as if that weren't enough, they all link to each other, so converting them one by one has to be done in the right order...

my questions are:-
1) has anyone migrated a large number of databases like this?
2) surely it's possible to have three concurrent versions of Access running on the network...?
3) are we in trouble ?

 

[Rabbie]

To answer your questions 2 & 3.

2. Yes you can have more than 1 version of Access on your network. It works fine to run the same DB with A2003 on 1 computer and with A2007 on another. I am assuming your DBs are split and each user has their own copy of the FE. If not you WILL get data corruption sooner or later (probably sooner).

3. The lack of A2007 experience will give you problems especially when you are not there.

 

[Darth Vodka]

2. Yes you can have more than 1 version of Access on your network. It works fine to run the same DB with A2003 on 1 computer and with A2007 on another.

cool, as i suspected, it's just IT trying to have an easy life

I am assuming your DBs are split and each user has their own copy of the FE. If not you WILL get data corruption sooner or later (probably sooner).

ha ha, no chance. they are some of the worst databases i've ever seen. the team amend the live version, very few are split and everything is hard coded. oh and they're all macros and no VBA. truly they are rubbish. except mine of course, they are the Rolls Royce of databases

 

[Darth Vodka]

oooh, i assume 2007 attempts to convert a 97 version...

 

[Rabbie]

I have DBs which are openable both by A2007 and A2003. A2007 seems to be able to open a DB in the old format. I have not tested with A97.

 

[cvajniga]

There are some bugs & issues to be resolved in A2007: http://www.alis.cz/relax/download/beta/Access2007_bugs.rar ~27MB pwd=A2007bugs

The best way is to try A2007. You could run former MDB (MDE) format apps in A2007 (not sure about A97). WARNING: You may experience incompatibility issues ie. some forms that perform fine in previous version will fail in A2007; see the A2007_bugs.rar.

HTH