Developed in 2003, run in 2000

[Herb]

I have developed an application in Access 2003. I need some users to run it
(not on a network) with their Access 2000. The app runs flawlessly for maybe
99% of the functionality. The VB code is failing in several points in
executing form-related functions for reasons that baffle me. e.g. VB hangs up
Access 2000 at the the expression: stDocName = "frmEventsForPostingForm"
with error "Can't find project or library". This statemetn never fails in
the Access 2003 execution. strDocName is used in: DoCmd.OpenForm
stDocName, , , stLinkCriteria When I change the statement to DoCmd.OpenForm
"frmEventsForPostingForm", , , stLinkCriteria, it works.

I suspect this is some kind of forward/backward compatability issue with the
two versions in play. Does anyone have any suggestion on how to vet my code
to avoid expressions / usages that would likely fail when running in the
older release?

Thanks.

 

[Beetle]

Just a thought, but sometimes odd problems like this happen when you
have missing references. Open the db on one of the A2000 stations, open
the code window and go to Tools/References. See if any of the checked
references say MISSING in front of the name. If so, uncheck it, close and
re-open the references window, then re-check the reference. Make a note
of the name of the reference before you do this, as it will not stay in the
same order once it is unchecked.

Even if nothing says MISSING, you might still try unchecking something
then re-checking it. Again make a note of the name before you do.

 

[Beetle]

Very good point Chris. Thanks.

 

[Albert D. Kallal]

I've been developing applications using access 2003, and a few of my clients
till very recently were using access 2000.

on a number of occasions when I deploy the application to access 2000, I had
nothing but problems and instabilities. I was an absolute mess.

I did figure out a way to make this work...

The simple solution is to do a de-compile before you deploy the access 2000
machines. It is best to do the de-compile on access 2000, then do a compact
and repair, and then compile the code. And, then hopefully at that point you
produce an mde for that person (Kinda hard to update and do bug fixes to
your customers code if you've not split, so I'm kinda guessing that you have
a split and violent and you're providing a new front end to your customers
for new updates).

Note that even my mde's created using access 2000 were also failing
**unless** I did that the de-compile! So the critical step in making this
work in terms of stability and bugs was to ensure that I do a de-compile
first, then compile the code, and that at that point is probably a good idea
to do a compact and repair. I suspect that could've done that the de-compile
on my machine with access 2003 (but I never did try doing it that way).

So, de-compile, then compile and then a compact and repair needs to be done
on the machine running a2000...

In doing the above, virtually all of my problems were eliminated.

There was a few other problems of such a screen replot issues that came up
with conditional formatting, but this had nothing to do with above, it's
just that access 2003 is two version later than access 2000, and a
significant amount of issues and bugs were fixed in 2003 that were not in
a2000....

As a general rule I do recommend you develop with the same version you are
deploying two, but I have successfully done the above, and if you follow the
simple de-compile idea, you should be able to get away quite well by
developing in access 2003 , and deploying to access 2000.

 

[Herb]

Thanks for the specific direction here. I'll be able to give this a try
tomorrow and see how it goes. Thanks again. H

 

[Albert D. Kallal]

Freudian slip or spell checker slip up?

Chris
Microsoft MVP

lol!!!...quite funny!!!

Freudian slip or spell checker slip up?

Worse!!...I am using voice dictation....you can well see that:

a split and violent

sounds much like

a split environment.....

(try reading both out loud...quite fast, you see what happneed - very cute
how voice software oftem makes funny words that sound simular to what is
being said..but are sooo far off!!).