Convert 365/2016 back to 2007

[pdanes]

The title pretty much says it all. The details:

I have Office 365 at work, but a server in the shop still Windows 2008 and Access 2007. Besides work, I have some private customers, and one of them is still on 2007. Until now, I have been developing on my work machines, which all have 365, then copying it to this old server and re-compiling it there. Occasionally it meant diddling some detail where I had used a new feature that was not available in 2007, but it was always a trivial tweak, and the shipped version of the database worked fine on the user's machine.

That has suddenly started throwing a fit. I copied my latest build to the server, but now I am suddenly getting a warning about version incompatibility - a small 'ribbon' under the main ribbon with this message. The message also has a button labelled "More information", which attempts to call a MS website, but fails.



There is no indication of just what is the incompatibility. I've tried decompiling and recompiling - no change. C&R - no change. Completely removing everything (all objects and code, a piece at a time) from the database - no change. I've tried the Save As... dialog to force the 2007 format - no change.

I may have to start with a clean new 2007 database and import everything, but there is a lot of stuff to import that the wizard doesn't handle, so I would have to do those by hand, which is a PIA.

The MS website has nothing helpful - just generic stuff which I've either already tried or doesn't work. Does anyone have any ideas on how I might track down and fix what this incompatibility might be?

[isladogs]

As a starting point, look at any start up code and check for any features not available in 2007
Issues I've experienced include the default sort order (Legacy?) in Access options. Also if my memory is correct, using back colours for form controls

[pdanes]

It shows this compatibility message even when started with Shift, so that no code runs. Except maybe the ribbon load code, now that I think of it. I wonder if something in there could be causing it. I'll look at that, although it even popped up when I removed the USysRibbon table, and ALL VBA code.

Problem with looking for stuff not available back in 2007 is that I don't really have a good grip on what is new in the newer versions. I know a few things, like formatting of toggle buttons that wasn't available earlier, but that hasn't caused problems, even when I inadvertently used it.

[pdanes]

Well, I gave up - no wisdom to be gained from my experience, I'm afraid.

I tried removing absolutely everything from the database - all tables, queries, forms, VBA code - everything. Then I repeatedly tried Save As in 2007 format, decompile, recompile, C&R. Nothing worked - an absolutely empty database, but Access refused to save it in an earlier format, gave no clue what it didn't like, but continued to whine about being incompatible.

I needed to get this done, so I just created a new db on the 2007 machine, imported everything I could, manually copied or re-created what couldn't be copied, and it now works properly. PIA, but I got what I needed.

Access won this round.

[isladogs]

I did offer two suggestions for you to try such as checking the default sort order but it sounds like you didn't actually investigate either of those.
An incompatible sort order would affect even an empty database.
The simplest solution which almost always works is to save as A2003 .MDB then resave that as .ACCDB in 2007.

[pdanes]

I did offer two suggestions for you to try such as checking the default sort order but it sounds like you didn't actually investigate either of those.
An incompatible sort order would affect even an empty database.
The simplest solution which almost always works is to save as A2003 .MDB then resave that as .ACCDB in 2007.

No, I did try that, as one of the steps. Didn't help. It also refused to Save As in any other format, as I wrote, including the pre-2007 options. I thought that maybe what you suggest might work - an older format, then bring it up to 2007. Access absolutely refused to save it an any other format, even when there was absolutely nothing in it (which presumably might have prevented the save due to use of an advanced feature). I don't know what was causing the problem, but this database was locked up solidly.

[pdanes]

I did offer two suggestions for you to try such as checking the default sort order but it sounds like you didn't actually investigate either of those.
An incompatible sort order would affect even an empty database.
The simplest solution which almost always works is to save as A2003 .MDB then resave that as .ACCDB in 2007.

No, I did try that, as one of the steps. Didn't help. It also refused to Save As in any other format, as I wrote, including the pre-2007 options. I thought that maybe what you suggest might work - an older format, then bring it up to 2007. Access absolutely refused to save it an any other format, even when there was absolutely nothing in it (which presumably might have prevented the save due to use of an advanced feature). I don't know what was causing the problem, but this database was locked up solidly.