Solved: Open accdb in Access 2003?

[CreganTur]

I just got this great resource book for Access 2007, but the problem is that the companion CD's databases are all in the new accdb format. Me, being the Access n00b that I am, was unaware of the format change.

Luckly I got this book free though work, but it's such a great reference so far that I don't want to have to shelf it until we upgrade to 2007 (sometime this year...yeah right:giggle ).

Is there any way to open these files with Access 2003, or at least extract the data from them?

[Trevor]

try right clicking the db file and select open with then navigate to your ms access 03, that should work, you may recieve a few errors if the db is using refferences only available to 07

[Oorang]

You can't open accdb with Access 2003. You can either download the 2007 beta (free) or the Microsoft 2007 Runtime (also free). Note the runtime will leave you quite restricted.

[Trevor]

Arron, I thaught 07 was backward compatable so that you could open 07 with 03 (might be restricted a little but you would still get an idea of what was going on

[Oorang]

2007 can make backwards compatabile files but they have to be set up that way. IE: Like in 2003 you can make a database in 2000 format. However just as you could not open a 2003 file in 97 you cannot open a 2007 in 2003. The Accdb format is 2007 only.

See: http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb905409.aspx

[CreganTur]

Thanks for the input everyone.

Good news is that the book's authors (right now in the early chapters) are just using tables and fields from the Northwind database, so I'm able to keep working:thumb

Plus my manager's been poking around and might be able to get me an install of 2007 soon- for training purposes only, of course :whistle: