Access™ 2007 VBA Programmer's Reference

A.2. Installing Multiple Versions of Access on One PC

As a developer, you are likely to need to work with multiple versions of Access at the same time and even for the same application. In the past, it was typical to use a different PC for each version. Although this avoided conflicts with DLLs, it took a toll on resources and space. Thankfully, reliable options are now more affordable. Two of the popular options are to use Virtual PC or to have side-by-side installations of selected programs.

With the new processors and hard drives, many machines have the space and capacity to run multiple versions of software. Of course, now that Virtual PC is free, it's usually recommend that you use that for loading temporary or test software. Virtual PC reduces the risk to the production environment, but it can be a bit of a resource hog. So we recommend Actual PC. Because we seem to routinely upgrade and replace hardware, it's a great way to put the old boxes to use. Both of those approaches essentially isolate the operating systems and software so the various versions do not conflict with each other.

There are some general guidelines for installing multiple versions of Access directly onto one computer, also known as running side-by-side. First, be sure to install the oldest version first, and although some people recommend that you not skip versions, others are successfully working with only the versions to be used. Second, if you are installing from an Office Suite instead of a standalone ...