Acccess 2003 - supports Win 98??

  • Thread starter Thread starter Vic Spainhower
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V

Vic Spainhower

I just received Access 2003 with the Visual Studio Tools and on the Access
2003 box it says "Requires Windows XP or Windows 2000". My question is can
I deploy runtime applications to machines running Win 98 and Win ME? If not
this will be a huge problem as I've many users still running these 2 OS's.

Also, can I have Access 97, Access 2002 and Access 2003 all installed on the
same machine? I currently have 97 and 2002 and would like to leave these
installed when I install 2003.

Vic
 
First question: No, but you could develop in Access 2003 and (provided you
haven't used any new run time features that were not supported in Access
2002) deploy an Access 2002 runtime. I've developed two apps now in Access
2003, using the Access 2000 file format, that are successfully running under
both Access 2000 and Access 2002.

Second question: It can be done, but Microsoft do not recommend it. In
particular, while you can develop on a PC with multiple versions installed,
the runtime should be created on a clean install of the earliest operating
system you intend to support. There are particular problems that can arise
if another version of the developer tools are installed on the PC on which
you create the runtime.

I've been experimenting recently with using Virtual PC for Windows (formerly
published by Connectix, recently purchased by Microsoft) for this purpose.
It allows you to set up a virtual PC, which can be running a different
operating system, within your Windows XP Pro or Windows 2000 Pro system. We
used it to solve a problem where an Access 2000 runtime created on a Windows
98 PC would not install on Windows ME. I installed Virtual PC, installed
Windows ME and Office 2000 Developer on the virtual PC, created the runtime
install there, and successfully installed that runtime on the problem
Windows ME PCs.

You do need plenty of hard disk space and RAM to use Virtual PC, but it's
cheaper than multiple physical PCs - and takes up a lot less desk space! :-)
 
Brenden,

I called Microsoft and they said yes, I can deploy the 2003 apps to a
windows 98 or me machine. They also said that it can co-exist with A-2002
and A-97 so I did go ahead and install and everything seems to be working
fine so far.

I haven't installed the Visual Studio Tools but since the format for A-2003
and A-2002 are the same it would seem to me that I can use the A-2002 P&D
wizard to build a setup package. Haven't tried it yet but I will.


Vic
 
You can deploy the apps, certainly (provided you have not used features that
were not supported in the earlier version). The problem is in deploying the
runtime, not the application.
 
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