Access 2003 linked to Access 97 tables

[ainkca]

Hi all,

I've got a database originally written in Access 97 that got converted to Access 2003. Since the rollout of users on our new Citrix environment(Citrix Presentation Server 4.0, with Web Client) is in groups, SOME of the users of the database still have to use the Access 97 version.

So I have the 2003 version tables as linked tables from the 97 version... everything in the database works fine until users try to print a report... then they get an error that the database is not in a recognized format.

From what I've read, I thought that the Office Service Pack 2 was supposed to resolve this, but it's installed, and it's still happening.

Does anyone have any suggestions for what I could try next?

(Even another idea on how I could do this differently and still have the two version be 'real time')

Thanks in advance...

 

[kjv1611]

What about (temporarily) just converting back the backend portion of the database back to 97 until a real solution is found, or until the other users can use 2003, and let the 2003 front ends link to the Access 97 formatted database? I would think 2003 would have no trouble linking to 97, rather than vice versa.

 

[ainkca]

Good thought, but that's already how it is. The folks still on the old citrix are using the 97 database. The folks on the new citrix are using the 2003 database, with the 97 tables. I can't just have them use the 97 database, because when they open it, Access wants to convert it.

Possibly they could just 'open' it and not convert it, but they'd have to do that each time right? And since there are about 1500 users (never more than about 5 or at a time) and I'm not aware of which groups are updated and which aren't (and isn't THAT helpful) it's too hard to communicate those instructions out. And there are users 24/7... and I'm only here regular office hours, so no help is available for them.

I did discover however that even though it SAYS it has a problem, the report DOES STILL PRINT. I thought that was interesting.

Thanks for your post anyway, it was a good suggestion.

 

[kjv1611]

It's been a while since I've seen it, but I was thinking you can set a particular option in Access to "never convert" or something like that... But I can't remember for sure..

Here's another thought: (though I would just consider it temporary, again):
What about (if this is at all feasible), finding what error is producing the message (since the report still prints), and trap that error in VBA, and basically supress the error for that error code.

To do so (if you don't already know the error code), you could run it once, with a messagebox telling the error number and description, so you know which number to trap. Then, change the code in the Error Handler so that when the code runs, you use an If statement to just tell it to do nothing, and thus escape the error message. That is if this is being done through a form. You may be able to do it if that isn't the case, I'm just not familiar with that.

 

[ainkca]

Good idea, I will try that... both things actually. I'll see first if there's an option to never convert. THat would make it so easy!

If that doesn't work I'll try your other suggestion. And I'll post what worked.

Thanks again!