Can 97, 2000, & 2003 co-exist? (97,2000,2003)

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Can I have all 3 versions of Access on 1 PC?

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Yes, and Access 2002 (aka XP) too, if you like. There are two conditions:
– You must install the oldest version (97) first, then the next to oldest one, etc.
– You must install them in different folders. This is default for Access 2002 and 2003, but the default location for Access 97 and 2000 is the same (C:Program FilesMicrosoft OfficeOffice), so you must select a custom location when installing.

Each time you run one of the versions, it will become the default for opening .mdb files, so it’s best to start the desired version of Access first, then open a database within it. (Access 97 cannot open databases in Access 2000 or later format)

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That’s what I was hoping, but wanted to make sure.

Thanks!

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As HansV said, yes you can certainly have A97 and A2000 on the same machine – we briefly had both on our machines here back when we were migrating from one to the other. It worked fine. It was particularly easy for us because shortcuts are used to open all of our departmental databases (to point Access to our Workgroup security file), so it was easy to make sure the shortcuts pointed to the correct version of Access.

See http://support.microsoft.com/kb/241141/en-us%5B/url%5D for some more details, particularly if you already have A2000 on your machine and need to install A97. I don’t know if there’s anything similar to watch out for with A2003 – we no longer have a need for multiple versions, so I haven’t checked.

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