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The was exactly the problem. Thanks for the solution. Next task is to train the muscle memory to use the Alt key.

Sounds like a great utility, but it will not run on my desktop computer (Win 11). After double-clicking the EXE, neither the installation program nor the portable version gave any indication whatsoever, of running. Nothing in the system tray, no warning from Windows Defender. Nada. Tried on my Win10 laptop, and it worked exactly as expected. I am stumped. Any advice how to determine what’s blocking it from running?

Finally figured it out. DoCmd.Save does not work. The only way to persist the report settings is to leave the report open in Design View, manually Save it from the Access menu, and then close it. SendKeys does not even work – it must be done manually.

Rick and Joe – you guys rock!!!! Success.

To summarize my convoluted path. I was nervous about making wholesale changes to the Registry, so I made a System Backup. I was not confident that I would catch all the necessary keys from the “good” machine, so my first approach was to delete the top-level keys from the “bad” machine and go thru the Office installation. I hoped that it would repair the missing components, but it did not.

So I did System Restore, and worked with the exported subkeys from the “good” machine. Happily, double-clicking the .reg files is sufficient to merge their contents, without the need of the NirSoft program. Total of 21 .reg files later, I opened Access and successfully opened the previously-broken form. Woo hoo!

Thank you both for your help.

 

 

Rick – I reread your part about posting back for advice about the registry just after responding to JoeP. I would welcome your advice.

 

Yes, that thought occurred to me as well, but it feels like going down a path that we are always warned about with mucking around in the Registry. I am not confident that I understand the Registry with enough detail to make the kind of changes that would be necessary. There are many individual keys, and many instances of each item, and probably lots of opportunity to get it wrong.

I appreciate the input.

 

I appreciate the response, but no joy. Turns out that the Office Uninstall tool was already in my downloads folder, but was not aware of it. Unfortunately, it was no more successful than the standard Uninstall process.

Then it occurred to me that a Registry Cleaner might be the answer. Tried CCleaner and Restoro, both highly rated, but neither of them deleted the keys that look corrupted to me. Maybe I’m misinterpreting their state.

Feeling like I could not do no more harm, I tried to manually delete the suspect Registry keys, but Windows responded with an error message that they cannot be deleted. Next step, install another program that purports to grant special permissions that allow stubborn keys to be deleted. Nope… still unable to delete them.

At this point it looks like I either live with the inability to use ADODB at all (which is not that big a deal to me) or re-install Windows (an unpleasant task, to say the least).