Hope there are some good gurus out there that can lend a hand to this discussion.

Can anyone here give me some advice on methods and strategy for maintaining and upgrading existing Access DBs as my VB6 (not NET) application develops and/or grows?

The story goes like:

MyApp.exe and my MyAccess.MDB are working fine together.

Client asks for modifications that result in program modifications as well as adding a Table or Field to the DB or changing the datatype of a field.

I make the necessary changes in my code and my local MDB copy but need to upgrade both her current EXE & DB to work with the changes. Whereas the EXE is no problem, what is the recommended method to update the client's DB?

Am I wrong in the assumption that I need to write several routines that include:

Thoroughly detecting the current DB structure vs new DB to determine the upgrade path (ie. what tables, fields need amending).
Adding necessary Tables.
Adding necessary Fields to existing Tables and possibly populating certain fields.
Changing datetypes and reformatting the current data in these fields.

I know this might be a complicated issue but appreciate any & all your wisdom. I'm sure others are interested in this topic as their programs and DBs advance.

I hope DANIWEB members are a bit more informative than the other lame sites I have visited.

Thanks to all,

Maj