Version 2, XP and dates

[peterglick]

One of my clients has started to run one of my huge Access V2 applications under Windows XP (previously 95 and 98). We are now getting some date handling issues (e.g. invalid syntax errors) that we used to get in Windows 98, because the Control Panel/Regional Settings did not match what AccessV2 needs. In Windows 95 you could just amend the Regional Settings (I think to change the case of the month representation) - in XP you cannot.

Anyone shed any light on this?

Peter

 

[willir]

peterglick

I guess the obvious thing is to upgrade to a newer version of Access.

Access version 2 was not Y2K compliant, but I believe there was a work-around patch.

The patch worked for Windows 95 and 98, but not for NT...

Follow this link...

http://www.utteraccess.com/forums/access/access42749.html

Sound familiar??

I am also aware of businesses that ran into the same corruption with Access 2.

Armed with some technical information, you may be able to convince your client to upgrade.

Richard

 

[KenReay]

Hi

While I am not an experienced user of Windows XP, I find it hard to believe that you cannot change the regional settings for items like Date, does that mean that all Windows XP users are using US style mm/dd/yy date presentation?

Regards

Ken Reay
Freelance Solutions Developer
Boldon Information Systems Ltd
Website needs upgrading, but for now -

http://www.kenneth.reay.btinternet.co.uk

UK

 

[peterglick]

Ken,

You can change the XP settings but not in the way that Access v2 demands, i.e. either all capitals or all lower case (can't remember which).

Upgrading to a later version of Access will cost the client £10,000+ (I'm expensive and the application is very, very large),

Peter

 

[willir]

Peter

WOW -- that is impresive.

I still think the client should upgrade. If the database is that important to them, they have to upgrade sooner or later. And data integrity is a darn good reason for them to bite the bullet now. (You can even mode to ADO, web pages, etc.)

The one customer I work with, had over 4000 databases to upgrade, and I think they spent over $300,000 US getting everything ported over to Access 2002. Only about $75 US a wack, not as impressive as your project, but still a lot of money.

Good luck
Richard

 

[KenReay]

Hi

I have used Access2 but it is so long ago I have forgotten the detail, and of course it was with correspondingly older versions of Windows.

But a few things puzzle me about your problem

Access is not case sensitive

Dates are held internally as a number, the dd/mm/yy or dd-mmm-yy etc is presentation (although you do have to have the correct locale set to avoid possible confusion between US style mm/dd/yy and UK style dd/mm/yy)

Could you give an example of where / how this is causing a problem?

Given that your user has WindowsXP, do they also have Office (and/or OutlookXP) installed with Access2 on same PC?, if yes, could it be that your problem is related to references to object libraries?, I presently have a problem (not with Access2 , but with Access97), which causes 'name#' type errors with dates, and appears to be related to a conflict between Access97 (Office97) object libraries adn OutlookXP (OfficeXP), but I have not managed to solve it as yet.

Just a thought, hope it helps.



Regards

Ken Reay
Freelance Solutions Developer
Boldon Information Systems Ltd
Website needs upgrading, but for now -

http://www.kenneth.reay.btinternet.co.uk

UK

 

[peterglick]

I'll see what the client thinks.

They have two databases - each with about 50 screens (some very complex), 40 reports, 200+ queries, 400+ macros, history going back about 8 years with 10,000's of customers, 100,000's of order details etc etc.

I've tried doing a simple conversion using the microsoft tools and even if you ignore the 16bit to 32bit issues, the migration screws up the screen formatting so that even fixing that will take me a coupleof weeks full time.

Ho hum - ain't life fun?!

 

[peterglick]

Access may not be case sensitive but what used to happen with the UK version of Windows 98 is that this came preloaded with the Regional Settings set something like dd MMM yyyy. AccessV2 then had all sorts of 'date syntax' errors until I changed the regional settings to dd mmm yyyy upon which all was ok again.

Windows 95 came with dd mmm yyyy so all was ok with that.

Windows XP comes with dd MMM yyyy but when you change it to dd mmm yyyy and press OK it goes back to dd MMM yyyy.

[Note that I using dd MMM yyyy but this is going back quite a few years so my memory may be playing tricks with me].

Other threads have stated that AccessV2 using these Regional settings whereas later versions used something else (internal Access settings?), so later versions do not have this problem.

They are using Office97, but the problem does seem related to change of operating system as they have been using Office 97 for many years with no problem.

 

[KenReay]

Hi
OK, I stopped using Acecss2 when Windows 95 was latest windows, so I have not experienced problems you describe.

A guess - are you using the generic Short date, medium date etc to format your dates?, if yes would using explicit dd/mm/yy or dd-mmm-yy overcome the problem?



Regards

Ken Reay
Freelance Solutions Developer
Boldon Information Systems Ltd
Website needs upgrading, but for now -

http://www.kenneth.reay.btinternet.co.uk

UK

 

[willir]

Gentlemen

Access 2 is no longer supported by Microsoft, it was not "truely" Y2K compatible, and there have been documented issues with corruption of dates on NTFS platforms, persumably due to Y2K issues. The work-around Y2K fix does seem to work on Win 95 and 98.

Peter -- Good luck talking to your client. Not an easy issue.