“Cannot open a database created with a previous version of your application”

Access 2013 and every version since dropped the ability to open databases from Access 97 and earlier (the Jet 3.x file format). The file is not damaged. Your Access is simply too new for it, and there is no setting that changes that.

What Microsoft expects you to do

The documented path is a two-step conversion: open the file in Access 2007 or 2010 (the last versions that read Access 97), save it as an .accdb or as an Access 2002-2003 .mdb, then open that copy in your current version. That works — if you still have an Access 2007 or 2010 licence somewhere. Many people do not; both left mainstream support years ago, and the free Access Runtime cannot convert.

If you only need the data

A conversion is only necessary if you want to keep using the file as an application — forms, reports, queries, code. If what you were handed is a records export, a vendor handover or an archive, the tables are the whole point, and those can be read directly.

AccessLens parses the Access 97 .mdb format itself, without Access or the Jet engine. Open the file in a Chrome tab, browse every table, search it, and export any table to CSV, or every table at once to an Excel workbook. Nothing is installed and nothing is uploaded — the extension has no network permission at all.

• Access 97 files often carry a database password. That password is a formality of the old format; like Access itself, AccessLens opens the file without it.
• Forms, reports, macros and VBA are not shown — tables and data only.

Questions