I honestly have no idea what I even need to ask here but bear with me. I had ACT 3.0 installed on my Dell Inspiron notebook. MS Professional with SP2, MS Small Business and MS Small Business Accounting. I use Outlook with Contact Manager too. As ACT 3 is old and not really useful to me now I wanted to upgrade to ACT 2006! Before so I and without knowing I shouldn't have done so, I "uninstalled" ACT 3.0. Or so I thought. Installation seemed successful with ACT 2006 except I am not able to either build or open any database or demo database. Get message relating to no Master something". Tried to uninstal ACT 2006! but unable to remove all components. Long story short I called ACT and after paying $199.00 for a service agreement they were on way to help me resolve this. Then they found a file in ProgramFiles/Microsoft/SQLServer that was for Small Business. They identified that this was what was interfering with ACT and I must call MS to get them to uninstall and make sure nothing else would be affected. So I did only to be sent to three different numbers worldwide and end up with nothing. Told to call Dell. I did and they sent me back to MS UNLESS I bougt a service contract with them to handle software! MS wants me to do same at hundreds of dollars! I found a BUG : You cannot repair SQL Server 2000 Desktop Engine (Windows) by using the add/remove Programs tool. Article ID 830477, Feb 13, 2004 revision :1:1.
I have no idea how to go about using this information to help me as I am (obviously) not someone knowledgeable in computer systems/technology.
It seems to me from the very little I've found on this topic over the last several days that there appears to be incompatability between ACT! (any version) and any SQL Servers or at least those with Small Business Pro or Small Bus. Accounting. If this is true then either ACT! or MS should make this known and instruct users of each as to what should be done to install either successfully. Maybe both can't exist together. I can't "uninstall" the SQL Server so does anyone out there know what I can do? I have some components of ACT3.0 still on system waiting to be uninstalled after the SQL server program is uninstalled. ACT says once this is done, they can help me remove all lACT 3.0 and then reinstall ACT! 2006. I need ACT! Appreciate your patience with this long winded question.