Which version of Access to learn and develop in ?

[StevenK]

I'm looking at getting to grips with Microsoft Access as a number of potential customers are looking for work doing using it.
I work on a laptop with Windows 2000 Professional with Microsoft Office XP (Excel, Word, etc. but no Access).
If I'm going to learn and develop in Access what version would I be best doing it in ?
1). If I install and use a recent version (2000?) if I then move the database to a client machine who only has Access 97 will it operate (having been saved in a higher release) ?
2). Would Access 97 install on a Windows 2000 machine and happily co-exist with more recent Microsoft software such as Office XP and SQL Server 2000 ?
Any help/advice would be appreciated.
Steve

 

[LSTAN]

Hi

I have the same problem, the workplace I work uses three versions of Access, i.e Access 97, Access 2000 and Access XP.

I develop most of my applications using Access 97. Most of my back end solutions are in Access 97 and the front end applications are a mixture of Access 97, 2000 and XP.

If you uses Access 2000 and decide to convert the database to Access 97, certain features and funtionality of Access 2000 will be lost, including the following:

1) data access pages, not supported in Access 97
2) table data that relied on the new Unicode compression may not convert correctly. Access 97 uses the shorter 256 character set.
3) Access 97 does not support the new Decimal Field Size property.

In my workplace, Access 97 run OK in Win NT and I believe running it in Win 2K should not be any problem.

I have two versions of Office suite, Office 97 and Office 2000, running in my PC and both work fine.

Hope this helps.

regards
LSTAN

 

[StevenK]

Thanks for the reply and the info.
So I'd be wisest to install Access 97 onto my laptop (which has Windows 2000 and Office XP) ?
Would this sit happily and not cause upset ?
At least this way any work I do could be transferred to client machines (be it that they have Access 97, 2000 or whatever) ?
Steve

 

[Isadore]

We had a discussion on this some days ago. Although DAO is going to be around for some time, ADOB connections are opening up -- I'm no expert in this area, but as a general rule I'd use ADO connectivity for Access 2000 and beyond; DAO for 2000 / 97 and earler...

 

[AccessMoron]

Access 97 to my knowledge is no longer supported by Microsoft. If I was given a choice of developing a database using Access on any platform, I would go with Access XP. It is going to be supported for the foreseeable future.

Further from what I understand Access XP will read 2, 97 & 2000 tables, however the same is not the case in the reverse order. Microsoft has never provided forwards compatibility! Access 97 will not read Access 2000 tables.