I have a simple database that I was working on over the last month. It is a
data entry style MDB right now in the default 2000 format. I work on it with
Access 2003 SP2. All updates applied. I have Admin Privileges. It references
a preexisting 2000 MDE that contains lookups to additional tables/database
files. Everything is Access 2000. There is also a data-backend.
I habitually save often and always defrag & compact/repair before I exit
after revisions. Everything was working up until the middle of last week. I
suddenly started receiving the "MS Office Access has encountered a
problem"... and shutting down. The weird thing. If I open up & run compact
without opening VBA editor, it doesn't crash. If I remove the reference to
the other MDE, I can open up the VBA editor and everything runs fine.
I have tried using older versions of the MDE I reference, but, they crash as
well. They did work prior to last week. If I open up the reference MDE
directly, it compacts without error. If I remove all code referencing the
MDE, but still have it 'attached', it still crashes on compact. If I
reference an entirely unrelated and unused MDE, it crashes on compact.

Now, I haven't made and changes/updates/patches to my system in a couple of
weeks. The only issues I've had....  The Genuine Updater wouldn't install
this last time around. I tracked down some MS newsgroup notes today that had
a link install a hotfix (KB905474/ver1.5.532.2). That did not fix it.  The
other oddity from last week had to do with my contact sheet. Silly, I know.
But, I added a phone number to a contact and was suddenly forced to setup
area codes and such for the OS. I don't know why...there's no modem and never
has been. I thought I'd ran across something about this.

At any rate. I'm at a loss as to what the problem is. I really don't want to
have to remove/install Office/OS. The Event Log doesn't help. It only shows
Source: MS Office 11 and EventID: 1000. Stamp: 42cdb33e Version:11.0.6566.0.
faulting msaccess.exe.  (As if I hadn't noticed what crashed)