Microsoft Access Trial

A Windows Application Programming Interface (API) function is one which directly addresses the Windows operating system.  Visual Basic for Applications (VBA) is the procedural language used within Access applications.

With 32 bit Access a function is declared as in the following example, which executes a file in its associated application:

Declare Function ShellExecute& Lib "shell32.dll" Alias "ShellExecuteA" (ByVal _

hwnd As Long, ByVal lpOperation As String, ByVal lpFile As String, ByVal _

lpParameters As String, ByVal lpDirectory As String, ByVal nshowcm As Long)

In 64 bit Access it would be declared like this::

Declare PtrSafe Function ShellExecute& Lib "shell32.dll" Alias "ShellExecuteA" (ByVal _

hwnd As Long, ByVal lpOperation As String, ByVal lpFile As String, ByVal _

lpParameters As String, ByVal lpDirectory As String, ByVal nshowcm As Long)

So, to correct any 32 bit API function calls to work in 64 bit Access you can simply do a find and replace over the complete project in the VBA editor to replace "Declare Function" with "Declare PtrSafe Function".  I've found that this is all that's required in nearly all cases.  If you do need to do so, you'll get an error message when you open a database.

You won't have written any API functions yourself, but it's possible you might have used imported solutions developed by others which do.  If so the above simple fix will probably be all that is required.

As regards VBA code to make any amendments to all form designs in a .accdb file, this would probably be out of your comfort zone at present.  The changes I found it necessary to make could easily have been done manually in form design view, but with the very large number of database applications I've developed over the years the task would have been very time-consuming, so automating it with some VBA code was the only practical solution.  You might find that your form designs don't require radical changes, or the number of forms needing design amendments might be small enough to do one by one manually.

Can I import an existing Access 2007 database file without any problem ?

The only issue I had when opening .accdb files created in Access 2007 was in the rendering of forms and their controls.  Instead of my blue and white house style the colours were somewhat insipid to say the least.  To avoid having to redesign each form manually I wrote a little VBA function which opened each form in a database in design view, changed the relevant properties to my standard colour scheme and saved the form.

If you do move from 32 bit to 64 bit Access BTW, and have used Windows API function calls, changing the function declarations with a simple 'find and replace' in the VBA editor is normally all that's needed.

Hi Geoff,

You can purchase the lifetime license, yes. However, Access is not part of all Office You would need the Office Professional sutie. You might be better off simply purchasing a stand-alone version of Access.

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/p/office-home-b...

licenses. https://products.office.com/en-us/access

I can't promise that you can import the Access 2007 database without problems but it can be done.

This forum is a user-to-user support forum. I am a fellow user.

I hope this information helps.

Please let me know if you have any more questions or require further help.

You can ask for more help by replying to this post (Reply button below).

Regards

Question 1 should be addressed to the Microsoft Marketing department; this forum provides support for the MS Access program itself. 

Question 2, yes, most likely. It depends on whether that Access 2007 accdb is 32 bit or 64 bit and if you have used APIs with it. If so, you'll need to either make sure you install the 32 bit version of Office 365 or modify any APIs to work with 64 bit Access. 

So, while it's tempting to say it SHOULD work with few or no problems, it's not possible to make a flat statement either way.

You would be better off, from a cost basis in buying the whole Office suite and whether you choose to buy a lifetime licence type or a 365 Sub is up to you https://products.office.com/en-gb/compare-all-microsoft-office-products?&activetab=tab:primaryr1

I had no issues when I went from Office 97 to the various other versions, there was some minor vba I had to modify in one of the earlier versions