About converting a previous-version Access database to Access 2000

About converting a previous-version Access database to Access 2000

This topic provides reference information about:

When to convert an Access database

Sharing an Access database with users of different versions of Microsoft Access

Creating and modifying objects

Changing database permissions

New toolbars and menu bars

Code compatibility

DoMenuItem replaced with RunCommand

When to convert an Access database

In most cases, you will want to convert a previous-version Microsoft Access database to Microsoft Access 2000. You can enable a previous-version Access database in Microsoft Access 2000 without converting it; however, you can't change the design of objects or take advantage of many of the new features in Microsoft Access 2000 until you convert the previous-version database. Once you've converted an Access database to Microsoft Access 2000, you can't open it in a previous version. You can't convert an Access 2000 database back to Access version 2.0 or 95; however, you can convert an Access 2000 database back to Access 97. For more information on enabling an Access database, click .

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Sharing an Access database with users of different versions of Microsoft Access

If your Access database is a multiuser (shared) database, and all users can't upgrade to Microsoft Access 2000 at the same time, you can upgrade parts of your database to support new features, while maintaining the original Access database unaltered. For information on sharing a database with users of different versions of Microsoft Access, click .

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Creating and modifying objects

When you're using Microsoft Access 2000 to work with an enabled previous-version Access database, you can use objects in the database to view and modify data. However, you can't save changes to database objects. To modify the design of an object or create a new object in the Access database, you must either open it in the previous version or convert the database to Microsoft Access 2000.

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Changing database permissions

In order to change or add permissions in a previous-version Access database, you must either open it in the previous version or convert the database to Microsoft Access 2000. To take advantage of all of the security features in Microsoft Access 2000, and to maintain the full security of your original database, you should recreate your user and group accounts and passwords using a Microsoft Access 2000 workgroup information file. Learn more about converting a secured Access database.

You can no longer protect your modules with user-level security; however, you can protect your modules by protecting the Visual Basic for Applications (VBA) code with a password.

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New toolbars and menu bars

Microsoft Access 97 or later supports a new style of toolbars and menu bars. When you convert a Microsoft Access version 2.0 or 95 database to Microsoft Access 2000, any custom toolbars, as well as built-in toolbars, are automatically converted to the new style of toolbar. Custom menu bars, created with the Microsoft Access 95 Menu Builder or with macros, are interpreted as the new-style menu bars when you open a converted Access database. However, they are not automatically converted, and therefore they can't be edited using the Customize dialog box. You can use the Create Menu From Macro and Create Shortcut Menu From Macro subcommands on the Macro command (Tools menu) to create the new style of menu bar from macros that use AddMenu actions. This enables you to use the Customize dialog box to edit them. Learn more about converting toolbars and menu bars.

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Code Compatibility

Microsoft Access 2000 does not support the DAO 2.5/3.x compatibility library. If you attempt to convert an Access database in which the code contains older versions of DAO objects, methods, and properties that depend on the DAO 2.5/3.x compatibility library, you receive a message that there were compilation errors during the conversion of the database. Before you convert an Access database, update the code so that it does not depend on the DAO 2.5/3.x compatibility library. If you still receive a message that there were compilation errors during conversion, open the converted database in Microsoft Access 2000, remove the reference to the missing DAO 2.5/3.x compatibility library, and then set a reference to the Microsoft DAO 3.6 Object Library.

If your Access database uses add-ins or library databases created in a previous version of Microsoft Access, you must convert them as well. For information about changes to methods, actions, properties, syntax, and other language elements, and information about code compatibility and conversion issues, click .

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DoMenuItem replaced with RunCommand

The DoMenuItem action is replaced in Microsoft Access 2000 with the RunCommand action; DoMenuItem is still supported for backwards compatibility. When you convert a database, the DoMenuItem action is automatically converted to the RunCommand action.

For more information on the compatibility of Visual Basic for Applications (VBA) between Microsoft Access 95 and 97 and Microsoft Access 2000, click .

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