Any issues with developing in Vista running in XP?

[PaulZak]

We need to migrate an Excel/Access application from Office 2003 to Office 2007. Thus, I'm considering the purchase of laptop with Vista (64-bit) and Office 2007. I believe all users will remain on XP (32-bit) for a while longer but many will move to Office 2007.

Might there be any issues from me developing with VISTA but user running XP? Asked differently, does the operating system impact development if the software running the app is the same? (We'd all be running Office 2007 but different versions of Windows.)

I've considered installing both Office 2003 and 2007 on my existing XP laptop but read some posts about resulting issues so I'd like to have each version of Office on a separate station.

Thoughts???

 

[SydneyGeek]

I guess it depends what you are coding. If you are staying in Excel / Access you shouldn't have problems (I haven't encountered any).
I have tended to stay with the classic Excel and Access file formats and have generally found no problems running the same code in XP/Office 2003, XP/Office 2007, and Vista/Office 2007.
There are a couple of things to watch though: Application.FileSearch has been disabled in Office 2007 so if you relied of being able to loop through all files in a directory, you will need to do it some other way. That's not an OS issue, that's Office itself. Also, if you want to go cross-version on pivot table and chart code, be aware that those objects were completely redesigned for Office 2007.

Denis

 

[Richard Schollar]

Denis

So you stay with the old mdb format for Access even when designing in Access2007? When you run connections to an mdb format database created and used in Access2007 do you still use the ACE OLEDB provider to connect to it or do you use Jet? I've realised I only use the newer accdb format (don't have any other version than Access 2007 on any of my home comps) and haven't considered any implications with using mdb rather than accdb...

 

[SydneyGeek]

Richard,

I have mostly stayed with the .mdb format because I tend to work in mixed environments. Because of that I have stayed with the ADO 2.8 Library for my connections. I am playing around with the .accdb format and for some stuff (custom ribbons, and the new template format) I like what I see but I haven't yet worked with a client that has a totally 2007 environment.

For most standalone database scenarios .mdb and .accdb don't make much difference (except that only 2007 can read the .accdb format). Once you starting interacting with Sharepoint, .accdb comes into its own. Access is now designated as the rich client for Sharepoint so you get read-write connections wtih Access, but not with any other Office apps.

Denis