Why does Access lose references? [Resolved]

[salvelinus]

We have a mix of Access 2K & 97, running on W98 & 2K.
Somtimes Access loses references that were there the day before. While some machines seem much more prone to this than others, it's kind of a random thing. It's more common on W98 machines, but does occur on some W2K machines now & then. Most people, except developers, only have one version of Access. This is an annoying problem - easy enough to fix when it occurs, but it throws the non geeks off.
Any ideas why this happens? Thanks.

[JustinLabenne]

What kind of references are you speaking of? From Tools > References in the vbe menu?

Opening the files in different versions will wreak havoc on applications using early binding for they upgrade well... but then re-open the file in a previous version and the reference is broken.

Is this what your asking?

[salvelinus]

Yes, the Tools>References.
Maybe that's what's happening. Most of the apps it happens to are in Access 97, and run on W98 machines. I develop on W2K, and have Access 97 & 2K. Some people that use the apps will open the 97 file in 2K since that's all they have. But the errors don't seem to occur consistently.
It does seem to help to dim stuff as DAO explicitly - Dim db As DAO.Database instead of Dim db As Database, for example. Most of these apps were written by someone else and I maintain & modify them. I was using VB.Net for a while, but we have a lot of old machines (think 32 mb RAM) that couldn't handle it. We're supposedly getting a new system that will require upgrades to the machines, but it's being written in Delphi.

[dannymking]

you will need to disambiguate your references to DAO and ADO always use

Dim Db As DAO.Database
Dim Rc As DAO.Recordset
Dim Arc As ADODB.Recordset..

Also if using any of the other office apps like Excel or Word, switch it to Late binding instead of early binding..

If your database was built in A2K then be aware that some functionality was not available in A97, but it should not matter the other way round as A2K is backwards compatible.

The differences between machines will depend on the versions of DAO and ADO that the machine has installed, if possible ensure that the same version of these are available on all machines.

[salvelinus]

Thanks for the help. I'm not used to thinking of early/late binding, in VBA. For my sake, and others who don't know the difference, would you please give a few examples? I know that if you don't set a reference to DAO 3.6, for example, Intellisense doesn't pop up for that stuff. Apparently some users need it set & others don't. I've been doing it for all to make it uniform.
AFAIK, there's no ADO used, although I think A97 is DAO bt default, A2K is ADO by default. That might be one problem, if a 2K user gets into a 97 file. Hmmm...
Although sometimes the reference to normal stuff (Date(), e.g.) is lost.

[dannymking]

The reference to normal stuff like Date() is lost due to missing references.. check the reference list for missing items, and resolve them..

[salvelinus]

Uh, yes, I realize that, and I do go and reinstall the reference.
I'd like to avoid this problem, though.

[dannymking]

A method of getting round some of the missing references is to either remove the missing references or to place the various files in the root directory of the database, and they should be picked up.. If using a client server style system then ensure the clients only have the references that they need to perform their job, if they need these additional references then register then using "regsvr32.exe" within the database startup code (Start-up form or AutoExec)

[salvelinus]

Thanks.