I have Access 2007, but would like to install Access 2003 and have both on my desktop [closed]

Question

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Is having both MS Access 2003 and 2007 on the same computer possible?

I have MS Access 2007 on my desktop, but would like to install Access 2003. Will they co-exist?

Answer 1

Microsoft states that it is possible to have multiple versions of office (Access is part of the Office suite) coexisting on the same machine on this page. I would pull out snippets of the document, but there are so many that are needed, so please refer to the document for potential problems with consistences of Office.

Answer 2

Can you try virtualization? I have tried to install both but, most of the time, it will call on the version that you do not want it to. Say it runs Access 2007 than 2003 when you double-click on the file (assume that you have a backward access file that can run both versions). Right now, I install VirtualBox and I have a Virtual Machine for each version (2003, 2007, and 2010).

By the way, when you change version (in Open With...), Access tries to re-install some files, which it takes couple minutes to install each time your change (depends on machine). Just click Next and go through. No problem in the installation part but you waste your time waiting for every time you change version.

Answer 3

I have both installed. In fact, I have 2003, 2007 and 2010 all installed on my laptop. That is sort of a clue about how old that laptop is and how often it gets formatted.

The only program that doesn't coexist with previous versions is Outlook. You can only have one version at a time.

Microsoft recommends that you install them in order (oldest to newest).

If you don't, they will still work. It is just occassionally, Office will run Setup to rearrange the registry settings that the older versions changed. The way to change that is to go into the Registry and update the File association keys to point to the latest version of each Office product.