I have an Access database created more than 10 yrs back.
I have very important data in it & I think it can be opened in Access 2007 or earlier version. Currently I have Access 2013 in my desktop and opening the file with this version results in the error "Cannot open a database created with a previous version of your application"
What is the solution for this issue? Is there any place where I can download the earlier version of MS Access?
I've just used Excel 2016 to open Access 2003 tables.
Open a new worksheet
Go to Data tab
Click on "From Access" menu item
Select the database's .mdb file
In the "Data Link Properties" box that opens, switch to the "Provider" tab
Select the "Microsoft Jet 4.0 OLE DB Provider"
Click on Next
Reselect the database's .mdb file (it forgets it when you change Provider)
Click OK
From the Select Table dialogue that appears, choose the table you want to import.
You can use MDB Viewer Plus from http://www.alexnolan.net/software/mdb_viewer_plus.htm to view or edit your old version database
As noted in another answer, the official word from Microsoft is to open an Access 97 file in Access 2003 and upgrade it to a newer file format. Unfortunately, from now on many people will have difficulty getting their hands on a legitimate copy of Access 2003 (or any other version prior to Access 2013, or whatever the latest version happens to be).
In that case, a possible workaround would be to
install a 32-bit version of SQL Server Express Edition, and then
have the SQL Server import utility use Jet* ODBC to import the tables into SQL Server.
I just tried that with a 32-bit version of SQL Server 2008 R2 Express Edition and it worked for me. Access 2013 adamantly refused to have anything to do with the Access 97 file, but SQL Server imported the tables without complaint.
At that point you could import the tables from SQL Server into an Access 2013 database. Or, if your goal was simply to get the data out of the Access 97 file then you could continue to work with it in SQL Server, or move it to some other platform, or whatever.
*Important: The import needs to be done using the older Jet ODBC driver ...
Microsoft Access Driver (*.mdb)
... which ships with Windows but is only available to 32-bit applications. The Access 2013 version of the newer Access Database Engine ("ACE") ODBC driver ...
Microsoft Access Driver (*.mdb, *.accdb)
also refuses to read Access 97 files (with the same error message cited in the question).
Non-Programming Answer: Download and install an older version of the Access Database Engine (2010 or 2007 for example, rather than 2013). Open Excel, navigate to the "Data" tab on the Ribbon and click "From Access". Import the data into Excel, and then Export to an accdb file or do whatever with it. NOTE! opening Access 2013 will trigger a re-install of the 2013 engine, so keep the 2007/2010 installation .exe around.
Programming Answer: Having installed an older version of Access Database Engine, you can use an OLEDB connection in multiple programming environments (C#, VBA, VBScript, etc.) to read/write and move Access data. Gord Thompson's answer also presents the option of jumping to SQL server and back.
See This post for a similar problem using an OLEDB connection
Connectionstrings.com is a great resource
See this post for how to setup an OLEDB connection using C#
You can do all these things but the underlying problem will be incompatibility with Windows updates of library files. Eventually you will have problems again. .ocx and .dll files will be clobbered and replaced: your database will not be able to cope with the new versions and it will not build or it will malfunction unexpectedly.
Instal Microsoft 2007 Access Runtime.
from https://www.microsoft.com/en-US/download/details.aspx?id=4438
Google Drive has an extension to open MDB files.
I'm not sure how well BLOBs work because I couldn't get my images to display but all the text came up.
NO, it does NOT work in Access 2013, only 2007/2010. There is no way to really convert an MDB to ACCDB in Access 2013.
If you're just seeking to pull the data out of tables contained in the mdb, use Excel and ODBC (DATA tab...Get External Data...From Other Sources...From Data Connection Wizard...Other/Advanced...Microsoft Jet X.X OLE DB Provider...pick your db...pick your table(s) and voila! Data imported. Then just save the workbook that then can be linked or imported into the newer version of Access to build a new database.
Dbeaver can open older Access .mdb and read Tables and Views. The ER diagram doesn't show the relationships though. However at least the table contents are easily extracted. It uses the UCanAcess driver, which if you say yes is automatically downloaded and installed when you first try and connect to an .mdb.
Note: Use "File >> Database >> New Database Connection" and not "File >> Open", else it just passes to the installed Access version and you'll get the same cannot open previous version error.
Here's a rediscovered mdb I opened today from cdrom not seen since 1999:
For a '97 Database...
Open the Access 97 database in Access 2003.
On the Tools menu, click Database Utilities, click Convert Database,
and then click to Access 2002-2003 file format.
Enter a name for the database, and then click Save.
Exit Access 2003.
Open the database in Access 2013.
On the File tab, click Save As, select Access Database (*.accdb),
and then click Save As. In the Save As dialog box, click Save.
All other versions:
To convert an Access 2000 or Access 2002 - 2003 database (.mdb) to the .accdb file format, you must first open the database by using Access 2007, Access 2010, or Access 2013, and then save it in the .accdb file format.
Click File, and then click Open.
Click the Access 2000 or Access 2002 - 2003 database (.mdb) that you
want to convert.
NOTE If the Database Enhancement dialog box appears, the database is using a file format that is earlier than Access 2000. To continue, see the section Convert an Access 97 database to the .accdb format.
Click File, click Save As, and then click Save Database As.
Choose the Access file type, and then click Save As.
If any database objects are open when you click Save As, Access prompts you to close them prior to creating the copy. Click Yes to make Access close the objects, or click No to cancel the entire process. If needed, Access will also prompt you to save any changes.
In the Save As dialog box, type a file name in the File name box,
and then click Save.
Access creates the copy of the database, and then opens the copy. Access automatically closes the original database.
Right from MS Office Documentation
In case you just need to dump the data you can use this clever script
http://youaccess.sourceforge.net . In case you are under linux / wine
you can try my procedure
Best solution would be to convert existing databases BEFORE upgrading to newer version/s of Access. Surely Microsoft should be warning users about this problem when upgrades are about to be installed.
To convert the data to a MySQL database, you can use the Bullzip Access to MySQL program. It's free and easy to use.
http://www.bullzip.com/products/a2m/info.php
On Windows 7, I must connect a MS Access client .accdb, where all the forms, VBA scripts, macro, and reports are, to a MySQL Database instead of a MS Access database .mdb. Here what I have tried so far.
I created a connection with MySQL Connector /ODBC 5.3 Unicode driver to the MySQL database with success.
After in MS Access 2013, I created a new database .mdb by linking to my local machine ODBC Connector. I can see the data in each table I have linked.
However, I didn’t find where to change the connection’s setup of the MS Access client .accdb so it uses the data from the new .mdb file linked to the MySQL database. Where do we do that?
Actually, I had also tried to directly connect the .accdb to MySQL by linking to my local machine ODBC Connector. In that case, the .accdb's forms kept trying to connect to the previous .mdb database. Where can I change this configuration?
Is there another, maybe easier way to use MS Access's user interface to interact with data from a MySQL database?
I have an access database that connects to multiple sql server databases using windows authentication. Before opening this access database, I have to use the 'runas' command in command line to run the application as a different domain user, which is the same domain as sql server. Now I need the ability to schedule reports from the access database at certain times and I know I can do this using task scheduler, which will always open the database first. This doesn't work for me since I can't automate the 'runas' command since I'll always be prompted for a password.
Is there a way to run a script to run the access macros on my access database that is currently open (on an existing process)? For example, if I need to send 3 reports throughout the day, could the script be called from task scheduler to run the Access macros on the current instance and not open up a new instance.
Thanks
AJ
I am trying to design a report in crystal report.
I have ms access 2007 as my database.
I started with new blank report file in crystal report. I thought creating new database connection using oledb but can find options for mdb files only but not the accdb file.
how can i get connected crystal report with access 2007 db
Edit:
I created new report.
1.) Clicked on Database Expert
2.) Clicked on Create New Connection
3.) Dbl Clicked on OLE DB (ADO)
4.) Choosed Microsoft Office 12.0 Access Database Engine OLEDB Provider
5.) Manually Copied .accdb file path from windows explorer and pasted it on Data Source
6.) Clicked on Next and Finish.
And finally it worked...
Is that fine? instead of copying file path manually isn't there a way to specify the path with browse functionality as in others?
There are a bunch of database access DLLs that you can choose to install when you install crystal, you may want to check that you have the correct database access files installed.
It maybe depreciated by MS but I find using the ODBC drivers works better with older file types. (I'm sure some one will tell me off for recommending this, but I guessing its not a mission critical report you are looking at)
Cheers
B
This is the standard method for linking to Access databases: Database Expert->Create New Connection->Access/Excel (DAO)
Have you already tried this method?
done that been there. It is getting harder with 2007 especially with Chrystal reports.
1)
Make a shell msaccess app tthat links to be databases
look into the north wind database same and figure out how to relink databases
In Chrystal reports use ODBC to link to the shell database.
Chrystal reports is getting difficult to use as it no longer supports Active X instead it use .net. I did get it work with Msaccess 2007-2010. but have issues with Access
2013
I have created an .mdb file programatically from another .mdb file using VBScript. It creates a table in the second .mdb file and populates data. Everything works fine and data is populated correctly. This is done using JET 4.0 driver.
The issue is that when I try to open the .mdb file using Access 2007, it tries to repair the file first. I do not know why that is happening. If I try to open it in Access 2003, it opens without the repair. I need to fix this. Has anyone run into this before or any ideas as to why it is happening?
Are you sure it's the mdb that needs to be repaired? Or is it the windows installer loading up and trying to repair MS Access?
MSAccess has some issues running multiple versions on one machine, look for "Windows Installer messages in Access" on this page. The repair process is controlled by various registry entries you may be able to create a process to reset these and prevent the repair process running.