Blog Post
Access Releases 7 Issue Fixes in Version 2311 (Released November 25th, 2023)
I have found a workaround to the problems.
If you use the Navigate method and specify a local file in the Form_Load event, the system will navigate to the local file. Having initialised itself with a local file, it can then be used to browse other local files, using the Navigate method.
However the control must have its Visible property set to True, so the local file is always shown on the form. This can be mitigated by initially navigating to a blank/empty file, but the control is still visible, which may be a problem during the initial loading of the form.
So the answer is to set the Height and Width properties of the control to 0 and the BorderStyle to Transparent (0). The control is technically still "Visible" but in practice it show no pixels and has no visible border, so it is "hidden" instead.