Anyone remember Office 97?
I need to package Access 97 to exist along side Office 2003 (with Access) for temporary backwards compatibility support during an enterprise wide migration. The issue being that users must retain access to databases during the migration when some are at 97 and others at 2003. (2003 only supports conversion of the 97 database to 2003, can't access it while in 97 format.) We are looking to have both 97 and 2003 installed and have everyone use 97 until 2003 is fully deployed. Then as we upgrade the databases to 2003 one-by-one, users will use the appropriate version. After that is completed, we remove Access 97.
Does anyone have any experience with this and can give me a heads-up on anything?
BTW, yes we have SQL and Oracle servers. Unfortunately, nothing was stopping users from creating their own Access databases and now they're relying on it for business critical functions, which we would never have recommended. The cat was away, the mice played, and now the cat must deal with it.
Does anyone have any experience with this and can give me a heads-up on anything?
BTW, yes we have SQL and Oracle servers. Unfortunately, nothing was stopping users from creating their own Access databases and now they're relying on it for business critical functions, which we would never have recommended. The cat was away, the mice played, and now the cat must deal with it.
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Posted by:
usachrisk
19 years ago
We had to do the same thing. Good luck getting your users to convert :) We did it with Access 97 and Office 2000. For scripting and packaging it, I followed this article:
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;241141
Maybe you can do the same with Office 2003, it's worth trying out on a test box. If you can avoid this, do. There are always problems here with this setup.
Good Luck!
Chris.
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;241141
Maybe you can do the same with Office 2003, it's worth trying out on a test box. If you can avoid this, do. There are always problems here with this setup.
Good Luck!
Chris.
Posted by:
VikingLoki
19 years ago
Thanks for the link. That font thing is really lame! Access97 is rendered useless because of a new font version? How pathetic is that?!?!
Luckily, we have 100% support from the top on the 97 to 2003 conversion. It's practically "convert your databases or be replaced by someone who will". We thought "phew! It's gonna be a cakewalk!" Then we realized... when should they convert it? We can't migrate everyone overnight, we can't avoid people being on the wrong side of the fence for up to two months! That certainly won't fly. Gotta have that 97 crutch until everyone can be forced to 2003 all at once! Damn!
Luckily, we have 100% support from the top on the 97 to 2003 conversion. It's practically "convert your databases or be replaced by someone who will". We thought "phew! It's gonna be a cakewalk!" Then we realized... when should they convert it? We can't migrate everyone overnight, we can't avoid people being on the wrong side of the fence for up to two months! That certainly won't fly. Gotta have that 97 crutch until everyone can be forced to 2003 all at once! Damn!
Posted by:
dm1
19 years ago
Under the Lockdown information provided by bkelly on the KB, he states:
"Access 97 self-registers its file associations on launch. If you also wish to install Access 2000/2002 it will replace the associations in HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT (HKLM). When Access 97 is launched in the future, it will try to re-write to HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT. If users do not have sufficient rights they will get an error when this update is attempted."
I can't apply user permissions to HKCR as it crashes the machine. is there another more sophisticated way of doing this??
"Access 97 self-registers its file associations on launch. If you also wish to install Access 2000/2002 it will replace the associations in HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT (HKLM). When Access 97 is launched in the future, it will try to re-write to HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT. If users do not have sufficient rights they will get an error when this update is attempted."
I can't apply user permissions to HKCR as it crashes the machine. is there another more sophisticated way of doing this??
Posted by:
Francoisracine
19 years ago
We are still using Office 97 and in some case Access 2000 on the same computer. We had no problem to change any permissions.
Perhaps, you will need to run regmon to see exactly where in HKCR, you will need to change permissions.
Perhaps, you will need to run regmon to see exactly where in HKCR, you will need to change permissions.
Posted by:
dm1
19 years ago
I've checked regmon and the permissions needed are WRITE for user to the HKCR\.mdb, .mde etc. The build I'm using is locked down to disallow users writing to classes root.
My deployment script could possibly incorporate cacls for the long list of registry keys i've identified for access 97 to write to. I can just create an .inf to apply these as they already exist in the package. I think this should solve the problem!
Is there any other Forumistas that have possibly had this issue? I don't think I'm the only one considering what I've run into on the internet today...solutions?
My deployment script could possibly incorporate cacls for the long list of registry keys i've identified for access 97 to write to. I can just create an .inf to apply these as they already exist in the package. I think this should solve the problem!
Is there any other Forumistas that have possibly had this issue? I don't think I'm the only one considering what I've run into on the internet today...solutions?
Posted by:
VikingLoki
19 years ago
What I ended up doing on this was to capture Access 97 and run a conflict check, focusing on conflicts with Office 2003. I then resolved all conflicts between Access 97 and Office 2003 by stripping the conflicting component out of the Access 97 package, preserving all Office 2003 components. This got me 98% of the way to having an Access97 package with Office 2003 as a prerequisite. The file extension registration issue was one of the things that end up being stripped in the process, Access97 seems to be fine with Office 2003 associations. All that was left was the hatten.ttf issue, where Access 97 only wants to work with its own version of the font. That was addressed with two Custom Actions, one which replaced hatten.ttf on install, the other restored 2003's hatten.ttf font on uninstall of Access97. Hope that's of help.
Posted by:
dm1
19 years ago
So you're basically saying that the File Associations for 97 can be removed from the package ?
I'll give that a try!
I'll give that a try!
Posted by:
dm1
19 years ago
I couldn't get the File Association sharing working, so I just granted permissions to the user to HKCR & other reg keys that are needed to get it working. Not the most elegant, but definitely effective.
Thanks for all your replies![:D]
Thanks for all your replies![:D]
Posted by:
VikingLoki
19 years ago
So you're basically saying that the File Associations for 97 can be removed from the package ?
That depends...
Office 2003 must be installed for my Access97 package to work, and Access files are associated with Office 2003. If someone has an Access97 file they need to open, then they need to launch Access97 and open it from there. That was acceptable for my situation, but it won't be acceptable everywhere.
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