Uncover the SendTo menu in Windows XP - then manage multiple versions of Access (and other applications)

Author: Garry Robinson from GR-FX, March 2002

After making the transition to Access XP on my laptop, one of the Explorer functions that I really missed was modifying the sendto command list.. ie. Being able to right click on an Access database and choose SendTo Access 97/Access 2000/Access XP.  Without that feature,  it can be quite painful opening up the correct version of Access before double clicking on the file.  Anyway, after a lot of searching in XP help, I finally found the trick to expose the SendTo commands.  Here are the steps that you need to follow.  Other send to's that I use are different versions of Word, a decent editor, a decent image editor and folders such as c:\temp. 

 
Figure 1 - SendTo is a great Explorer productivity trick
Click on image above to see full picture

To add a destination to the Send To menu

1. Open My Computer.
2. Double-click the disk drive where Windows is installed (usually drive C, unless you have more than one drive on your computer).

   If you can't see the items on your drive when you open it, under System Tasks, click Show the contents of this drive.

3. Double-click the Documents and Settings folder.
4. Double-click the folder of a specific user.  
   eg. c:\documents and settings\'user name'\sendto
5. Double-click the SendTo folder.

   "Here is the catch"  GR

   The SendTo folder is hidden by default. If it is not visible, on the Tools menu, click Folder Options. On the View tab, click Show hidden files and folders.

    

6. On the File menu, point to New, and then click Shortcut.
7. Follow the instructions on your screen.

Adding Access Versions to The SendTo Menu

1. Keep the sendto folder open in your "documents and settings" folder.
2. Find your Access executable using Windows Explorer.  It will probably be called MSACCESS.EXE and will be in the Office sub directory.
3. Right click on the file and choose copy.
4. Return to the SendTo folder and right click in it.  Choose paste shortcut.  Change the shortcut name to something more meaningful such as Access 2000. 
5. Now when you right click on a file, you will see the send to the list of Access software as in figure 1.

Now you may want to return to folders and turn off the view hidden files options.

An easier way to handle multiple versions is to use The Access Workbench

Click on the button for the next help page in this Access Loop.