Microsoft Office 2000 Resource Kit

Microsoft Access 2000 can open databases created in any previous localized version of Access. For some languages, Access 2000 users who are running Microsoft Windows NT version 4.0 might need to install language support that comes with Windows NT 4.0.

Note Users of previous localized versions of Access cannot open Access 2000 databases.

Opening databases from previous localized versions in Access 2000

If only part of your organization is upgrading to Access 2000, you might want to leave existing databases in the format of your previous version of Access so that all users can open the databases.

However, if you are using Access 2000, you might not be able to open older databases if the language version of your operating system differs from that of the operating system on the computer used to create the database. Access databases are saved in a particular sort order, and the default sort order matches the sort order used by the operating system on the computer used to create the database.

For example, a database created in Access 95 on a computer running the Arabic version of Microsoft Windows 95 uses the Arabic sort order by default and cannot be opened on a computer running the English version of Windows 95/98 or the English version of Windows NT 4.0.

Note Windows 2000 includes international sort order support for multiple languages. Users running Access 2000 on Windows 2000 can open databases from previous versions of Access in the native sort order.

There are two ways to work around this problem. One solution is to install national language support (NLS) files that extend the ability of the operating system to support additional sort orders. The other solution is to recompact the database by using a sort order that is supported by multiple operating systems.

Supporting the default sort order on Windows NT 4.0

In Windows NT 4.0, you can install a language pack that includes NLS files that support the default sort order of the database.

Using the General sort order on Windows 95/98

In Windows 95/98, you cannot add the NLS files that support foreign language sort orders. Instead, you must compact the database by using a sort order that is supported by the operating systems on all computers concerned. The most commonly supported sort order is General.

The General sort order allows users running a variety of language versions of Windows 95/98 to open a database. However, this might not work well for your organization if you store data in Spanish and Asian languages, which do not support the General sort order. For such databases, it might be preferable to convert the database to Access 2000 format.

For example, Access 2000 users running the English version of Windows 95 might need to open an Access 95 database that originated on a computer running the Japanese version of Windows 95. In this scenario, it might be better to convert the database to Access 2000 format than to attempt to share it across language versions of the operating system.

Note For a list of languages that support the General sort order, see Access Help.

Opening forms and reports from previous localized versions

Access 2000 can open and read the English and European-language content of forms and reports from any previous localized version of Access. However, if the database is based on a code page other than Latin 1 (code page 1252), and if you are using Access 2000 with an English or a Western European version of the operating system, some text might be rendered incorrectly.

For example, a database created in Access 95 on the Greek version Windows 95 is based on the Greek code page. When an Access 2000 user running the English version of Windows 95 opens the database, the operating system maps code points to the new code page, so some Greek characters might appear as accented European characters, question marks, open boxes, or other unintelligible characters.

Converting databases from previous localized versions of Access

If Access 2000 users don’t need to share a database from a previous localized version of Access with users of the older version, convert the database to Access 2000 format. If the database was saved in the default sort order on a computer running a non-English version of the operating system, convert it by opening it in Access 2000 and saving it in Access 2000 format. Access converts the data to Unicode.

By using the original language sort order

When you convert an older database to Access 2000, Access uses the sort order to determine which code page to use for converting the data to Unicode. Access 2000 associates the General sort order with the Western European code page, so if non – Western European data is stored in the General sort order, the data is corrupted when Access 2000 converts it.

Therefore, if the older database is based on a non-English version of the operating system, and it is saved in the General sort order, you must recompact it in the original language sort order before converting it to Access 2000. Otherwise, Access 2000 cannot properly convert the data to Unicode.

By specifying the code page for the General sort order

If you don’t have the necessary language version of the operating system, or if the data in the older database is in a language that had no sort order in earlier versions of Access, you can still convert the database to Access 2000.

For example, databases in earlier versions of Access that are based on Vietnamese, Farsi, or a Baltic version of the operating system (Estonian, Latvian, or Lithuanian) default to the General sort order because previous versions of Access did not support sort orders for those languages. To convert these databases, you must create a registry entry to prevent Access 2000 from corrupting the non – Western European data.

To convert non – Western European databases that use the General sort order

Removing conflicting data to solve indexing problems

Access 2000 upgrades some sort orders so that they differ from previous versions of Access. In the new sorting, characters that were considered different in older databases might be considered the same in Access 2000. As a result, the converted database might contain conflicting data, making it impossible to create a unique index for some tables. To create a unique index on the affected tables, you must remove the conflicting data.

A similar problem might occur when changing the sort order of a database. Characters might be different in one language but equivalent in another language. For example, the Western European lowercase i and uppercase I are considered equivalent when sorting alphabetically. But in Turkish a lowercase i might be dotted or not dotted, and the two i characters are not considered equivalent when sorting alphabetically in Turkish. Because they are considered equivalent in the General sort order, however, these characters can create conflicting data when you upgrade a Turkish database to Access 2000.

Upgrading Reference for Localized Versions of Office

Sharing Access Databases Across Language Versions