Singing the Access 2016 encoded .mdw blues (1 Viewer)

Hi all!

I am struggling with .mdw files which are still in Access 95 and 97 format. I can open the .mdw files in Access 2007, but when I try and convert them to 2003 format, it is not possible because the files are encoded. The 'Decode' option under database tools is greyed-out. :banghead:

The frontend and backend databases associated with these .mdw's have over the years been updated to at least MS Access 2000/2003 format, but somehow that process did not update the .mdw files at the same time, which was not spotted in Access 2007 (where the DBs work).

We are currently upgrading from 2007 to 2016, and this is suddenly a major issue. Even if I attempt to strip out .mdw security by converting the frontend and backend databases to .accdb files, I STILL get a message in Access 2016 to say that the databases cannot be opened 'because it was created in a previous version of MS Access.'

TBH that last anomaly is not what I am primarily interested in, because updating the .mdw files is by far the most efficient path for us at the moment. There are too many databases which would require re-engineering to convert them all to .accdb, because the security features were applied to multiple roles within the databases, i.e. there is code which queries a users role, and if there is no security, the code is not activated. Needless to say, documentation from the original developers is minimal to non-existent, so I would rather avoid having to go through a race to analyse the affected DBs before Access 2007 is removed from our environment.

So to recap; is there a way to update encoded .mdw files from MS Access 95 and 97 to Access 2003 format?

All help gratefully received

Many thanks, Kevin

Kevinatwork said:

So to recap; is there a way to update encoded .mdw files from MS Access 95 and 97 to Access 2003 format?

Click to expand...

No, MDW was dropped..
See this thread for other options...
https://access-programmers.co.uk/forums/showthread.php?t=190322

My understanding is that to update these files to 2000/2003 format, you will need to use Access 2010 or earlier. Other than that, everything I can find says you should be able to just do the upgrade without a hitch. In A2007, you just do a Save As and select the format.

The limitation was taken from THIS post.

Edit: Gizmo, it looks like he just wants to update to 2003, which does still allow the use of the MDW files as long as they're saved in the A2003 format and not the A95 format.

Thanks for looking at this folks; FrothingSlosh is correct, I would prefer to continue with .mdb files and carry on using .mdw files. What is stopping me from doing this is that the .mdw files are showing as being Access 95, despite the frontend and backend files being Access 2000/2003 . I have Access 2007 still available, and the databases work fine (even with user security) in that version, but from 2010 onwards there is no tolerance for Access 95 files, so Access 2016 refuses to open the databases.

edit: Reading FrothingSlosh's post again, I went back again to check the 'Save as' option (I'd been using 'Convert'). Although it is greyed-out, the options WERE there and I attempted to save as Access 2003 (.mdb, even though it is an .mdw file). This time a little 'Converting' progress bar appeared in the bottom right (gasp!), but then it complained that it could not find MSysAccessObjects. But this is progress, thank you!

I just need to figure out how to get around the access rights issues hopefully.

Thanks again, Kevin

Hi all,

I think I've cracked it, so thank you to Uncle Gizmo and especially FrothingSlosh, that simple 'Save as' suggestion was the starting point to a solution. It's a bit of a hack, but I had scoured the web and couldn't find anything in either the forums or the MS Support sites that reflected the issue we faced. That might mean we had a unique 'set' or environment, but after I've tested a few more DBs, I'll come back here and outline the whole sorry tale for anyone unfortunate enough to find themselves in the same situation.

Right now I'm buzzing and it's Friday, it's 6 o'clock and for some reason all I can think about is a frothing flagon of 'The Faltering Fullback's finest, so I will wish you all a wonderful weekend and take my leave until next week

Cheers! Kevin

Yeah, as a rule, we like you to post the answer you figured out if you do it yourself - that way, if someone down the road looks up the post because they have the same problem, they can see the answer right away.

Omg. That's my daughter's local... Small world.

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