How to handle multiple versions of MS-Access better

[anhn]

Hi All,

Some of my users have multiple versions of MS-Access installed on their PCs, such as 97, 2000 and 2003.
These versions of Access may be installed in any folders other than the default folders.

On distribution of a shared MDB file (of any version) that located on a known path, I want the users will open it with matching version of MS-Access.

If all versions of Access were installed in the same folders for all users such as:
Access 97 in C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office
Access 2000 in C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office 10
Access 2003 in C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office 11
then it is easy as I can distribute a fixed shortcut with Target such as

"C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office 11\MSACCESS.EXE" "X:\ABC\MyDatabase.MDB"

But that is not the case.

I came up with a silly solution, that is:
Create an Excel file with an auto-executed sub, that use VBA function
acApp = CreateObject("Access.Application." & ver)
where ver = 8, 10 or 11 (resp. for 97, 2000 or 2003),
then use acApp object to open the MDB file, the Excel file then close itself.
In case if CreateObject() fails then the user does not have the required version of Access, just make a prompt before closing the Excel file.

Do you have a better solution?

In case of an Access-97 MDB file, I also want to stop a user (who does not have Access-97) to open it with Access-2003 then choose the default option to convert it to Access-2000/2003 MDB file.
Even I can make the job of conversion fails by using an MDE file instead of an MDB file then change the extension .MDE to .MDB.