Updating references in earlier versions

[Guest]

Hello,
I have a VB6/MS Office Excel/Word VBA app configured in Win XP Office 2003.
I am trying to make it compatible with earlier versions of Office-Office 97
on a Win 98 platform at present-and after researching have decided to try
late binding. According to MS documentation, the application should update
its references when opened in the earlier Office 97 version. It has done this
for 6 of 8 references: except for the MS Word reference-it is still looking
for Word 11.0 in the same location as was on the original, newer platform.
Then it is also looking for the MS VBA Extensibility 5.3 file in the location
of the original, newer platform as well.

Does anyone have an idea how I can get my app to point to the correct 2
references per above? Also should the Extensibility reference be to the newer
5.3 version (vbe6ext.olb) which per KB article 269116 is a replacement for
the earlier older type library (which I am guessing is vbeext1.olb as that is
what I find on my Office 97 platform);and if so 1) should I add that to my
installer application. 2) how do I get it to point to the correct location?
Will I need to use code to locate and set the reference to the file?
Thanks, blessings
Van

 

[Matt Jensen]

Don't know if this will help
I've been having a number of problems after developing in xl2002 and running
on xl97, and ended up saving as 95 and then rebuilding what functionality
was lost in xl97 and since then everything has been great, as well as
rebuilding having appeared to eliminate quite a bit of junk code who knows
where inside my workbook as the file size decreased to a third (1.5MB to
0.5MB!)!
I was having printing problems and dialogues that wouldn't go away about
saving in an older version of Excel, and know it's all great. A pain but
maybe will work, as well as having file size benefits.
HTH
Matt

 

[Matt Jensen]

Oh yeah btw saving Excel as 97-2002/5.0 didn't help given 97-2002 apparently
use same file format but somewhere the file knows which version you saved in
and there doesn't appear to be a way to change it.
Matt

 

[Tom Ogilvy]

97-2002/5.0 format saves the file with two different file formats, one
97-2002 and one 5.0. So it would make you file much bigger.

Saving in xl5 format would remove any use of userforms, activeX controls or
commandbars.

 

[Matt Jensen]

Yeah, not being very clear am I, after saving as xl5 I then opened in 97 and
started building from there (I think that's what I did!)
hth
Matt

 

[Tom Ogilvy]

Easier and most often recommended is to build in the earliest version of
excel in which the application will be used.

 

[Matt Jensen]

Sure, but for the inevitable cases of people not knowing/using this wise
wisdom, I wonder what is the best way to 'downgrade' to Excel 97 in
particular, there seems to be a lot of people in that predicament - all the
other situations seem to be well catered for...?
Matt

 

[Guest]

Tom, Matt,
Thanks to both you guys for your input.
Van