Trying to open .mdb created in Aceess2K in Access97

[Darryl1940]

My wife has a report to do this week. It was created in Access2000 at work; she has brought it home to work on in Access97. Error message appears... it reads something like.."cannot recognize .mdb file"...Isn't it possible to convert the database from Access2000 so as to be able to work on it in Access97? If SO....how, please?? If NOT...please advise what to do. Thanks.

 

[KenCunningham]

I wonder whether your wife could save the file at work (using save as) as an Access 97 compatible database? However, this has dangers that she might lose some functionality as it is essentially a 'downgrade'. I use only Access 2 so others might be able to advise more comprehensively. HTH.

 

[ErikZ]

Access 2000 has a function to downgrade to aq previous version of Access. It's under tools, datbase utilities, convert database.

I have NO idea if it's any good though. I have found, converting anything to anything else, using MS products, is frought with risk. My solution, find someone with a copy of Office 2000 and install it on your home machine.

Or better yet, don't take your work home with you.

 

[snoopy75]

Recently, I ran into a similar problem at work. I had a 2000-format database I needed to open at work, but I only had 97 installed on my machine. I ended up taking it home and using the "Convert to Previous Format" command to downgrade the database to 97-format.

Everything seemed to work fine, except for a few things in the VBA code that didn't exist in Access 97. For example, the Split and Join functions, and custom enumeration types were things I had to replace with compatible functions.

But to answer the original question X-), the only way I know to open a 2000 database in 97 is to find someone with 2000 and have them convert it to 97-format.