From: PW on
Hi,

Our client is running an Access97 version of our application on a
Windows 7 PC. It has been running successfully over the past 3 weeks.
This morning they open up our app and receive the error "Can't be
started. Was unable to initialize the Windows registry. Re-run
Microsoft Access or Microsoft Office to reinstall".

They say the only thing that has changed is that they did a Windows
update yesterday.

They are using our app with a runtime version of Access.

Any ideas?

-pw

From: RonG on
On Mar 27, 11:11 am, PW <emailaddyin...(a)ifIremember.com> wrote:

If they did a Windows Update, it's possible that they updated some
Office components, which could potentially have reset some keys in the
Registry. I've had this happen with my users on occasion, and having
them do a re-install usually fixes the problem (we're also using the
Access97 runtime). You can Google the message text, and you will see
that this is a documented problem. Unfortunately, most of the fixes
you'll see won't help a user with the runtime version, if I remember
correctly. It's part of the challenges of having multiple versions of
Office products running on the same PC. My own solution is to update
my app to Access2007, which isn't a walk in the park, either, at least
as far a my app is concerned.

Ron
From: PW on
On Sun, 28 Mar 2010 09:11:22 -0700 (PDT), RonG <rgafron(a)sbcglobal.net>
wrote:

>On Mar 27, 11:11�am, PW <emailaddyin...(a)ifIremember.com> wrote:
>
>If they did a Windows Update, it's possible that they updated some
>Office components, which could potentially have reset some keys in the
>Registry. I've had this happen with my users on occasion, and having
>them do a re-install usually fixes the problem (we're also using the
>Access97 runtime). You can Google the message text, and you will see
>that this is a documented problem. Unfortunately, most of the fixes
>you'll see won't help a user with the runtime version, if I remember
>correctly. It's part of the challenges of having multiple versions of
>Office products running on the same PC. My own solution is to update
>my app to Access2007, which isn't a walk in the park, either, at least
>as far a my app is concerned.
>
>Ron


Thanks Ron. They are using an older version of our product (and not
paying us for support) as the current one is in Access 2003 (no
problems with Win 7 clients yet). Maybe if we have them reinstall our
application that may fix the problem? Thankfully they also have an XP
machine. They are in their peak season and don't have the time for a
reinstall right now.

Thanks again,

-paulw
From: RonG on
Hi Paul,

Just FYI, we did have to make some changes to our Acc97 app when our
users started using Vista, but we now have users running Win7 with our
Acc97 runtime app and they're not reporting any problems.

If you make use of our good friend Google, you'll find articles and
threads about running older versions of Office apps along with newer
versions of Office and Windows. The challenges are all pretty well
documented now. Unfortunately, many of the solutions don't help much
in the runtime world. There may be some creative solutions that I
haven't found yet, of course.

Ron
From: PW on
On Mon, 29 Mar 2010 07:11:02 -0700 (PDT), RonG <rgafron(a)sbcglobal.net>
wrote:

>Hi Paul,
>
>Just FYI, we did have to make some changes to our Acc97 app when our
>users started using Vista, but we now have users running Win7 with our
>Acc97 runtime app and they're not reporting any problems.
>
>If you make use of our good friend Google, you'll find articles and
>threads about running older versions of Office apps along with newer
>versions of Office and Windows. The challenges are all pretty well
>documented now. Unfortunately, many of the solutions don't help much
>in the runtime world. There may be some creative solutions that I
>haven't found yet, of course.
>
>Ron

Thanks Ron. How about if they just pay the small upgrade fee and
their small annual support subscription first! Some of these lodges
that buy our software make lots of money yet $150 a year or whatever
for phone and email support, upgrades, new features is too much? Our
competition (not that there is anyone else that has a product that
exactly does what ours does) charges what I think are outrageous
support fees. Sorry for the rant :-)

It is only these guys that are having trouble with our A97 version
with Vista or 7 (that we know about).

-paulw