Access97

TomC · 11-12-2003, 11:44 AM

I own Access97 and need to look at some newly created MDB files - I presume these files are of the very latest version of Access. I installed my copy of 97 on my computer which is operating under WindowsXP but when I tried to load the MDB files, I got an error message - Incompatable Format.

Is there a way I can update my 97 to be able to see this data - short of a full Access upgrade?

FYI - all I really want to do is view the data and generate some custom reports.

Thanks in advance for any help anyone may be able to offer.
Tom

dank · 11-12-2003, 12:37 PM

Would OpenOffice be able to handle that?

Dan

*Andilinks* · 11-12-2003, 12:54 PM

Quote:

Would OpenOffice be able to handle that?

Open Office has no database, so probably not.

I think the easiest way would be to find someone with a recent version of Access and have them Save as...

That is assuming you don't know the originator who could do this.

I too use Access97 but haven't yet encountered this problem.

If you don't know anyone with a recent version you could try posting here:

http://www.utteraccess.com/

Andi

*Jarrod* · 11-12-2003, 01:05 PM

There is a viewer available from MS that might help you, depending on what you want to do. Believe there is a run time only engine, but that only comes with the developer edition of Access. I think that MS Query that comes with Office allows ODBC connections so that might get you in as well.

Jarrod

dank · 11-12-2003, 02:28 PM

Quote:

Open Office has no database, so probably not.

That's what I was thinking, but I couldn't remember if it was the database or presentation app it was missing.

Dan

*Randall* · 11-12-2003, 07:00 PM

Nuts. I can't remember the name of it now, but I was reading about an Access-compatible DB program not too long ago. I think there was a free trial, too.

Maybe I was smart and bookmarked it on my home machine...

Randall

*Andilinks* · 11-12-2003, 09:30 PM

I just opened an Access97 .mdb file with Lotus Approach, this might be worth a try. If you want to send me a test file I will try it here.

Once opened with Lotus Approch it could be saved as an earlier version of Access or delimited text file.

Andi

*Andilinks* · 11-12-2003, 09:45 PM

Another possibility is MS Works, I think most computers are shipped with a recent release of this.