Hi:

The company I am consulting with uses Access 2000 and has no intentions of upgrading. I currently do not own Access on my laptop.

I was planning to purchase Access 2003 for my laptop but was told that I would have to convert my files back and forth so that each version can read the other's format.

I'm just wondering if anyone knows whether the conversion works well, fast...or whether I'd be better off going onto something like ebay and getting the 2000 version. (I can get 2003 for about the same price as 2000 - so my preference would be to get 2003.) The other obvious reason for going for 2003 is that I could run into the reverse challenge if I own 2000 and my next client uses 2003. At that point, I'd be forced to upgrade to 2003.

My databases are not complex - but do include some customized macros.

Any help, comments... appreciated.

Thx,

dave

Access2003 supports 2000 MDB format too - so you'll be able to work without any problems (99.999%).

Thanks for the lightning fast response.

Sincerely appreciated.

Dave

There are some issues that can arise. Proceed carefully and ALWAYS make backups of all of your databases before you make changes.

In my experience with Access 2002 and 2003, once you have edited and saved a db in Access 2003, you can no longer edit it in the earlier version, although it will run in both versions. This is true whether you convert the db to that earlier version or not.

Since I've not widely tested this, I'm not sure if my experience is typical or atypical.

Anyone else have an insight?

George

Edited by: GroverParkGeorge on Mon Nov 29 14:36:34 EST 2004.

I have found that you can choose the format that you want to develop in and convert up or down depending on what you want and still be able to edit the db in what ever format it is in with exceptions of 97 of course. Granted the new wizbangs that come with 2002-2003 will no longer work with 2000 so you should decide what you want your db to formated as 2000 or 2002-2003.

I think in his case - the user will work and edit an Access2000 database in Access2003 environment without converting the database back and forth from 2000 to 2002-2003 format.

However - I found out that editing an Access2000 file in Access2003 - Access will use 2003 syntax , rather than 2000. Example:

Docmd.OutputTo - in 2003 offers an extra argument, [Encoding] - is last argument.
This argument is not available in Acc2000. Unfortunately in Acc2003 even if you are editing an Acc2000 database, you'll be able to use that argument - and you'll get an error if that database is opened on a PC with Access 2000 installed.

Interesting I have not come across that paticular problem. I will be sure to look for it, thank you.