Database will not open with a shortcut icon

Is Access 2003 still installed on the systems or do they have the runtime installed?  I worked with a recent client that had 2003 system installed on their system.  They reported similar errors.  I had the one use open the database directly with 2010 which told the system to use that flavor of access by default.  The issue came back when the user open a different database short-cut that had Access 2003 hard-coded.  

Tom

Yes 2003 is still installed for curricular reasons as some pupils are part way through a course.

What do you mean by one use open? How can you tell it to use 2010 by default. The database itself was 2003 format so I save and published it to the latest version and this appears to have worked but I am not confident.

I believe that Windows makes the last open version of Access the default.  In this case, I am referring to opening Access without the focus of a database.  In my case, I had one user, Kerry,  who have both versions (2003 and 2010).  The secretary would be using the system and Kerry would attempt to access the shared database and nothing would happen.  We had the secretary close the database and Kerry would then be able to access the database.  This is when I noticed that Access 2003 was the default version on Kerry's system.  We opened Access 2010 from the start menu and it did a few things- not really sure but I am going to assume it is application related.  With Access 2010 being the default version, everyone is now able to work with the database at the same time.

With that being said, I think that having both versions is the cause and that removing the previous version isn't an option.  You could hard-code in the Access 2010 executable path in the short-cut for the database; this will force 2010 to be used.

Hope this gets you to a solution.

Tom

There's a registry entry fouled up somewhere by 2010.  Problem is, I haven't figured out which one yet.

 I have the same thing at one client; first person in, no problem.  You can open a MDB by double clicking on it or a shortcut.

 After that, everyone else needs to open Access, then do file/open in order to open it.   If they double click it directly, then nothing happens.

  Other odd thing that happens there is if you open a DB, then double click on Access on the task bar; it's opens another instance of a specific DB each time.

 This all started after someone installed and launched 2010.  I have since un-installed it, but the problems remain.

 This client currently has Access 2000 and 2003 installed, which gives me an idea....2000 didn't have the self-repair features like later office versions.  2003 did.  They don't use that much.  I'm going to try launching it and see if it cleans up the registry entires.

Jim.