Error with Access 2003 MDE file

I have a friend I sent an mde file to. She only has Office 2000 Pro.
I distributed it under a zip file and it unzipped OK, but when she went to open it, it did not recognize the format and asked her to update her MS Access to a current version.

any suggestions??????

I need to distribute this to about 15 people, not knowing what their operating systems or versions of MS Office are.

TIA
Greg

Hi Greg

You will need a copy of Access 2000 in order to create an MDE file in Access
2000 format.

Using Access 2003, you can only create an MDE in 2002/2003 format.

--
Allen Browne - Microsoft MVP. Perth, Western Australia.
Tips for Access users - http://allenbrowne.com/tips.html
Reply to group, rather than allenbrowne at mvps dot org.

"Greg Mohr" Greg wrote in message
...
I have a friend I sent an mde file to. She only has Office 2000 Pro.
I distributed it under a zip file and it unzipped OK, but when she went to
open it, it did not recognize the format and asked her to update her MS
Access to a current version.

any suggestions??????

I need to distribute this to about 15 people, not knowing what their
operating systems or versions of MS Office are.

TIA
Greg

Yes, upgrade to the developer's edition of Office and send the 2003 runtime
version with your application. Having said this, if they open any other 2000
database they might have, it generally blows away the runtime version in
which they can't open the 2003 mde file until they install the 2003 runtime
again. This has been my past experience with other versions. I can not vouch
for the 2003 version.

Your best bet is to downgrade the 2003 version to 2000 and use Access 2000
to turn that into an mde. If you do this make sure you check what references
are set and compile the database before turning into a 2000 mde.




"Greg Mohr" Greg wrote in message
...
I have a friend I sent an mde file to. She only has Office 2000 Pro.
I distributed it under a zip file and it unzipped OK, but when she went to
open it, it did not recognize the format and asked her to update her MS
Access to a current version.

any suggestions??????

I need to distribute this to about 15 people, not knowing what their
operating systems or versions of MS Office are.

TIA
Greg

Hum, in ms-access, you can make a mde file in a2000

Thus, a2000, a2002, and a2003 all will be able to open and run the file.

However, as you jump up each new version, then the versions below cannot use
the mde file of the version you make (this has been true for most formats
like word, excel etc. (thus, there is usually good forward movement..but
going back is not always very good).

You can distribute a mdb file (but, I am betting you are like me..and don't
want to do that).

Access 2003 can create a mdb file for all versions going back to access 97.
However, when you create a mde file..then you are fixed the code, and you
have to be at the same version level.

About the only solution I can come up with is to install 3 versions of
ms-access on your computer.

Hopefully someone else comes up with a better solution then the above...,
but you don't have a lot of room on this one.

You can certainly keep the back data file in access 97 (as a mdb), and then
distribute 3 front ends as a mde that link tot he data file. This kind of a
approach is quite nice, since you can then send new updates without touching
the data file part...


--
Albert D. Kallal (Access MVP)
Edmonton, Alberta Canada

http://www.attcanada.net/~kallal.msn

"GVaught" wrote:

Yes, upgrade to the developer's edition of Office and send the 2003 runtime
version with your application. Having said this, if they open any other 2000
database they might have, it generally blows away the runtime version in
which they can't open the 2003 mde file until they install the 2003 runtime
again. This has been my past experience with other versions. I can not vouch
for the 2003 version.

Hmm, likely what is happening is the file extension association is
being set to the runtime version.

One approach, which is a bit of a PITA, is to add explicit path and
file names of the appropriate versions of access to all the shortcuts.
For example "C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office
97\Office\msaccess.exe". Including the quotes if you have any spaces
in the path name which is very likely.

There are some programs out there which will automatically start the
appropriate version of Access.

One of those is ACCVER - Allows you to work with multiple versions of
MS Access databases. Detects the version of Access used to create your
MDB, MDE or MDA files and either reports the version number or starts
the appropriate version of MS Access.
http://www.aylott.com.au/accver.htm

Also see: INFO: Access 2000/Access 97 Coexistence FEPs (Frequently
Experienced Problems)
http://www.trigeminal.com/usenet/usenet019.asp?1033
Subject: INFO: Avoiding the default system.mdw loss when
re-registering Access 97
http://www.trigeminal.com/usenet/usenet018.asp

Tony
--
Tony Toews, Microsoft Access MVP
Please respond only in the newsgroups so that others can
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