Converting 97 to 2000 (97 to 2000)

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We are about to upgrade to Access 2000. We have lots of databases in existance written in 97. What problems should I be aware of and what is the best way to upgrade these old databases?

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Here are a few remarks. There is much more, of course. Loungers with more experience in this will no doubt chime in.

(1) Access 2000 uses ADO as default object model, while Access 97 used DAO. You can still use DAO in Access 2000. I would stick with it for the moment. Later on, when you’ve converted your databases successfully, you can start playing with ADO.
It might be a good idea to prefix DAO objects in declarations in your code with “DAO.” to avoid confusion with ADO objects with the same name. For example:
Dim dbs As DAO.Database
Dim rst As DAO.Recordset

(2) Access 97 has a “formatted message box” feature: MsgBox “Error@Something went wrong.@Contact the help desk.” displays as

Error

Something went wrong.

Contact the help desk.

This doesn’t work any more in Access 2000. It’ll just display the @’s. So either replace the @’s by ” & vbCrLf & ” or use a workaround. If you do a search for “formatted msgbox” or something similar, you’ll find ways to display a formatted message box in Access 2000. (Opinions on the usefulness vary)

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Thanks for this, any more help from anyone else greatly appreciated. I don’t care how “Basic” the steps or information, in fact, it is probably what I need….

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Almost always the builtin conversion works fairly well. Open an Access 97 database in Access 2000 and it will prompt you whether you want to convert it. If you tell it to convert it, it will turn it into an Access 2000 database for you, with all the references in the correct order (if you create an Access 2000 database from scratch and want to continue using DAO, you either need to put the references in the correct order or use DAO. in all the appropriate places in your code).

Make sure before converting an Access 97 database that it compiles OK. You may still run into the situation where the database won’t convert without errors, but I’ve only run into that with one of my databases. If the database converts without errors I (so far) haven’t had any problems with the converted databases.

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Thanks for this, appreciated.

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There are numerous MS Knowledge Base (MSKB) articles re: Conversion to Access 2000 that you may want to check out. Some deal with specific conversion issues, some are more general in nature. I’d take a look at these:

ACC2000: Where to Find Conversion Information for Microsoft Access 2000

ACC2000: Conversion White Paper Available in Download Center

The first article listed includes links to some of the other articles that deal with specific conversion issues. The second has link to download the conversion “white paper”, a Word document with detailed information that you may find useful.

By the way, isn’t today the big day to commemorate the King? Unless the “Elvis” in your name refers to Elvis Costello….

HTH

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Hey Mark,

Excellent, hip swivelling weekend and then back to some great help. What more could a fan want? And Elvis Costello might be OK, but should always be referred to by the full name – because there is only one “Elvis”. The King live on – in my front room.

By the way, I heard you were safe from Polar Bears – they don’t eat penguins – (can’t get the wrappers off).

Cheers

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Somewhere there is also a post from Charlotte who said you should decompile and then re-compile your Access 97 database, compact and repair it, and then do the conversion. BTW, de-compile is a command line switch, e.g. at the command prompt type msaccess.exe /decompile yourdatabase.mdb.
Rock on,
Gwenda

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There’s a post on decompile here, but I’m not sure what other threads it might have been referenced in.

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Thank you. I have now got plenty of ammunition to arm our database chaps with. Chocks away people – We’re going in….

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