Upgrading to Access 2000

How to Convert an Access 2000 Database Back to Access 97

After you convert a database from a previous version of Microsoft Access to Access 2000, you might need to make a copy of the database available for a user who is running Access 97. You can convert an Access 2000 database to an Access 97 database if it is not a member of a replica set. Any functionality that is specific to Access 2000 is lost when you convert the database to Access 97.

Converting an Access 2000 database to an Access 97 database makes the following changes to the converted database:

• Links to data access pages are lost.
• Data that relies on Unicode support in Access 2000 might not convert correctly. Access 97 uses characters from only a single code page — a numbered set of 256 characters. For example, an Access 97 database might use only ANSI characters. During conversion, the collating order of the original Access 2000 database determines which set of characters that the resulting Access 97 database can use; any characters that are not in this set are not converted correctly.
• An Access 2000 database containing a table with a FieldSize property of Decimal cannot be converted to Access 97. You must change the FieldSize property to another value such as Single or Double, or you must change the data type of the field to Currency before you can successfully convert the database.

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Convert the database to Access 97

If the Access database is secure, remove user-level security. After you convert the database, you can secure the Access database in Access 97. If the Access database is protected with a password, you can convert the database without removing the password.

Important   If the Visual Basic for Applications (VBA) code is protected with a password, you must supply the password before you convert the database. To supply the password, open a module to start Microsoft Visual Basic. On the Tools menu, click Database Name Properties, and then enter the password in the Password dialog box.

To convert an Access 2000 database to Access 97

1. Open the Access database that you want to convert.

   If this is a multiuser database located on a server or in a shared folder, make sure that no one else has it open.

   If you are converting a secured Access database, make sure that you have Open/Run and Open Exclusive permissions for the database and Read Design permissions for all objects in the database.

2. On the Tools menu, point to Database Utilities, click Convert Database, and then click To Prior Access Database Version.
3. In the Convert Database Into dialog box, type the name of the new previous-version database that you want to create in the File name box, and then click Save.
4. If the Access 2000 database is secured and you want the converted database to retain that security, open the database in Access 97 and reapply user-level security.

Note   If your Access 2000 database contains code, you might need to fix missing references after you convert the database to Access 97. Also, if your Access database uses add-ins or library databases created in Access 2000, you must convert them back to Access 97.

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Fix missing references in the converted database

You can convert code that uses Data Access Objects (DAO) back to Access 97, but you might receive a message that your computer is missing at least one of the Access 97 object libraries.

To fix the missing references in a converted database

1. Convert the Access 2000 database to Access 97. When you receive a message that your computer is missing at least one of the Access 97 object libraries, click OK.
2. Open the converted Access database in Access 97.
3. Open a module in the database.
4. On the Tools menu, click References.
5. In the Available References box, clear the check boxes next to any missing references, and then set a reference to the Microsoft DAO 3.51 Object Library.

Note   Unlike Access 2000, Access 97 is not designed to work with ActiveX® Data Objects (ADO).

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See also

For more information about settings permissions in Access 2000, see Setting User-Level Security.