Querying an old database

[spyrojyros_Tail]

Hey all,

Here is my problem, im working on an old 97 database that is being used by a program and sometimes errors occur through the use of the program and certain tables are not updated properly, so instead of doing this manually I want to be able to query this database through SQL and then later down the line put these SQL queries into a program so it will be more user friendly to edit the database.

So when I try and test one of my queries out, access tells me that I cant make changes to the database because it was created in an earlier version. Now I know i can update the database, but if I were to do that the program that is using the database wont work!

So im a little stuck now, will I have to keep editing the database the manual way or is there another option here? Im wondering (for any java heads out there) If I were to write a java program that would query the database and edit the data inside would that work or would I get back an error?

Thanks in advance!

 

[neileg]

You should be able to link the A97 tables to a later version database. I'm not sure if that's what you have tried?

 

[spyrojyros_Tail]

Im not too sure what you mean by linking the old database to a new one.
The program that is using the database needs for it to be kept in A97 so I cant update the database, and I need to query the database just to change some infromation in the tables and it wont let me do this without updating the database.

If i link the old database to a newer version, how will that work? The changes need to be made to the old database, and the program using the old database needs to pick up on the changes being made.

Thanks for the reply

 

[neileg]

Confused!

I am assuming that:
1) You have an Access 97 database that is being used by an external program as data storage
2) You have a later version of Access and you have opened the A97 file with that but have not converted the file to a later version
3) You want to be able to view and amend the data in the A97 file

Create a new blank databse in your version of Access. Use Import Data from the file menu and follow the Link option. Navigate to the A97 file. You will find that you can link to the A97 data tables. You will then be able to write and run queries and change the data without having to convert the A97 file to your current version of Access.

 

[Pat Hartman]

You cannot change objects in the A97 database with newer versions of Access. You can only change data. If you need to make structural changes, you need to convert the database to A2K format, make the changes, and then convert it back to A97 format or install A97 to work with the application.

 

[spyrojyros_Tail]

Ok, ill give those ideas a try. I havent been working with databases for a long time so im still a bit rusty, but ill let you know how it works out. One of the problems is that we have multiple databases of the same format. To explain it a bit more clearly the program that the database uses is for accounts, and for each client we have they have their own individual database. And sometimes mistakes happen in the program (down to user error, typos, etc) that cannot be fixed within the program itself. So we need to rectify the mistake through the database itself. So editing all those databases may not be efficient...

But ill give that a shot anyway, thanks for the replies