The Magic Analyst v4.3 requires that you have Microsoft Access 2000 or later installed and working. The full version of Access 2000 was distributed with the Professional and Deluxe editions of Microsoft Office 2000, but few people purchased these (expensive) upgrades to the basic suite.

Fortunately, Microsoft distributed a runtime version of Access 2000 on Disk #2 of the Office 2000 Small Business Edition, and it will also work. Office 2000 SBE was pre-installed on most name brand computers shipped between June 1999 (the launch of Office 2000) and June 2001 (the launch of Office XP), so most people have it.

Even if Office 2000 is installed, though, Access may not be. The easiest way to tell if you have Access 2000 installed is to search your hard drive for the executable. Just click Start/Find/Files and search for "MSACCESS.EXE". All Office 2000 installations include a file by this name, but in the basic suites it's just a stub. Look for a file that's at least 4MB. (The original Access 2000 executable is 4,569 KB, and is typically installed in C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office.)

(1) If you own a copy of Office 2000 Professional or Deluxe and can find your CDs, you can install the full version of Access 2000 via the Office 2000 Setup program. (Of course, you've probably figured that out.)

(2) If you own a copy of Office 2000 Small Business Edition and can find your CDs, you can install the Access Runtime via the Setup program on Disk #2. Just install the "Small Business Customer Manager" under the "Microsoft Small Business Tools", and Setup will install the Access Runtime to support it.

(3) If you own a copy of Office XP Professional or Deluxe, you can install the full version of Access 2002/XP via the Setup program. (We haven't tested the Magic Analyst on Access 2002/XP directly, but many people seem to be using it. Feedback would be appreciated.)

(4) If all that fails, you can download and install the Access 2000 runtime from Microsoft's website, but be forewarned: true to Microsoft form, the minimal install file is 32MB, and it requires that you already have Internet Explorer 5.0+ installed. Get the monster here.

Note that the Office XP Small Business Edition no longer includes the "Small Business Customer Manager", so the Access Runtime may no longer be included in Office XP SBE either. The easiest way to tell would be to search the installation CDs for the executable. Feedback would be appreciated.