Unable to work with my Access 2003 file

[Raksha]

It thus happened that, quite a few time (guess, years back) I had Microsoft Office 2003 installed on my PC. I happened to create a database on Access 2003, back then. I recently bought a Dell 8300, installed Microsoft Office 2007 and tried opening my previously created database with Access 2007. But, I don’t know what the issue is, it shows an error stating: ‘incorrect file type’. The extension of the database I created is .wbd. Can anyone please help.

[Homer]

It might be compatibility issue. Also, the extension ‘.wbd’ appears unidentified. Try changing the extension. I think, that should help.

[Mysha]

Even i tried a lot of Internet surfing and finally managed to do what you said. I mean the extension change thing. It did work partially. As in, the file still doesn’t open. It instead shows a message ‘unrecognized database format’. Can you come up with some other solution? Is reinstallation of Access 2003 possibly solve this issue? By the way I forgot to mention, the database seems to be identified by the adobe reader. That was when the extension remained unchanged. Also, I still have the original MS Works that came with my previous PC.

[Aleeza]

The issue is not with the file. The file which you are worried about is not an Access file at all. It is a Works database. You can change the extension back to ‘.mbd’ and open the file with Microsoft Works.

Also, there are converters available which is used to convert Works database to Access or Excel format. You’ll get hell lot of freeware on Google. This will help you avoid load the entire MS Works to your PC. With this all you need to do is import the data into whichever format you prefer.