Jet driver version

[Amy Blankenship]

Hi, all;

My client has just released a system where user records are stored to a
local access database (saved as Access 2000). In the past few days, I have
been getting calls from users where it appears that the most likely cause is
that the correct Jet drivers are not installed. At least one user has
confided that he has Access 97 installed on his computer. How can I check
the Jet version to determine what version he has?

Thanks;

Amy

 

[Guest]

1) It doesn't matter if the user has A97 installed. The files
are different, and Windows has both versions installed by
default.

2) You can use code like this to check the version numbers
change the version numbers to what ever you want: check
whichever files you want.

'David Graham. (david) Right to attribution retained.
'Watch for word wrap

Option Compare Database
Option Explicit
Const mcModuleName = "mdlRP_DLLCheck"
'2003/02/26 dlg
Private Declare Function GetFileVersionInfo& Lib "Version" Alias
"GetFileVersionInfoA" (ByVal FileName$, ByVal lptr&, ByVal lSize&, lpvData
As Any)

Public Sub gsbDLLCheck()
If ("4.0.7328.0" > gfn_GetVersion("msjet40.dll")) Then MsgBox "Warning:
MSJET40.dll is " & gfn_GetVersion("msjet40.dll") ' & ", not SP7"
If ("9.0.0.3822" > gfn_GetVersion("msaccess.exe")) Then MsgBox "Warning:
MSACCESS.EXE is " & gfn_GetVersion("msaccess.exe") ' & ", not SR1"

End Sub

Public Function gfn_GetVersion(FileName$)
'2003/02/26 dlg --minimalist version -- Right to attribution retained
Dim iBuf(0 To 99) As Integer
Call GetFileVersionInfo(FileName$, 0&, 200, iBuf(0))
gfn_GetVersion = iBuf(25) & "." & iBuf(24) & "." & iBuf(27) & "." &
iBuf(26) 'FILE VERSION

End Function

 

[Tony Toews [MVP]]

My client has just released a system where user records are stored to a
local access database (saved as Access 2000). In the past few days, I have
been getting calls from users where it appears that the most likely cause is
that the correct Jet drivers are not installed.

What messages are you getting? How did you come to the conclusion
that incorrect Jet DLLs might be the problem?

Tony
--
Tony Toews, Microsoft Access MVP
Please respond only in the newsgroups so that others can
read the entire thread of messages.
Microsoft Access Links, Hints, Tips & Accounting Systems at
http://www.granite.ab.ca/accsmstr.htm
Tony's Microsoft Access Blog - http://msmvps.com/blogs/access/

 

[Amy Blankenship]

What messages are you getting? How did you come to the conclusion
that incorrect Jet DLLs might be the problem?

Queries are not returning results, so anything could be the problem. Given
that, it seemed worthwhile to check that the correct jet drivers are
installed.

 

[David W. Fenton]

Queries are not returning results, so anything could be the
problem. Given that, it seemed worthwhile to check that the
correct jet drivers are installed.

Without any error messages, there's basically no help that anyone
can give you.

 

[Amy Blankenship]

Without any error messages, there's basically no help that anyone
can give you.

At this point there is no way to gather that information. What is the point
of posting to say you have no intention of being helpful? I mean, if you
were posting to say "I have a theory but it could be wrong" that is one
thing, but to post to say that your experience hasn't prepared you to even
offer an idea of what it could be is a waste of everyone's time.

-Amy

 

['69 Camaro]

Hi, Amy.

if you were posting to say "I have a theory but it could be wrong" that is
one thing, but to post to say that your experience hasn't prepared you to
even offer an idea of what it could be is a waste of everyone's time.

Here's a theory that's guaranteed to be 100% correct and very helpful to
someone in your shoes:

"You'll get further with honey than you do with vinegar."

HTH.
Gunny

See http://www.QBuilt.com for all your database needs.
See http://www.Access.QBuilt.com for Microsoft Access tips and tutorials.
Blogs: www.DataDevilDog.BlogSpot.com, www.DatabaseTips.BlogSpot.com
http://www.Access.QBuilt.com/html/expert_contributors2.html for contact
info.

 

[Tom Wickerath MDB]

you need to leave these MDB losers and go and find some qualified SQL Server
gurus

 

[Amy Blankenship]

Hi, Amy.


Here's a theory that's guaranteed to be 100% correct and very helpful to
someone in your shoes:

"You'll get further with honey than you do with vinegar."

I had several reasons for responding as I did:

1) Often, if you get peoples' adrenaline pumping by challenging them on
some level, something will spark in their memories that wouldn't if you were
sweet and nice.
2) He was not actually answering the question posed, so it's difficult to
worry if he's offended. I didn't ask for opinions on whether or not my
theory that Jet was the issue were right, but for people to share their
experiences of circumstances under which Jet might fail.
3) If people see a lot of responses on a thread, they are likely to
consider that the person is getting help and go to the next thread, even if
none of the responses are helpful in any way. So I consider it extremely
rude to answer a question with "No, I can't tell you the answer, but I
consider you stupid to have even asked."

All three of these points apply to your own post as well. Did you have
anything productive to add to the topic at hand?

Thanks;

Amy

 

[Amy Blankenship]

[]

Without any error messages, there's basically no help that anyone
can give you.

At this point there is no way to gather that information.

Then nobody is going to be able to help you.

What is the point
of posting to say you have no intention of being helpful?

I would be happy to offer advice if there were any information given
that would allow me to do so.

But there isn't, and you say there never will be.

I actually said there would not be for _this_ user. Who knows when/if there
will be another user with a similar problem? However, I find it highly
unlikely that _no one_ on this forum has ever seen a failure of Jet of any
kind that they could share a few thoughts on.

How unprofessional of you to distribute a program without any error
reporting!

It has all kinds of error reporting. It does not have any error reporting
for _this_ situation, because it was not an error I thought I'd ever need to
trap for.

You're the one wasting people's time, seems to me.

You did not have to respond to my post. If you respond to a post, it looks
to others who might help as if the user is getting help, so unhelpful posts
are actually obstructive. If you can't provide productive input, it's
better not to create the appearance that you're helping.

Thanks;

Amy

 

[Rick Brandt]

You did not have to respond to my post. If you respond to a post, it
looks to others who might help as if the user is getting help, so
unhelpful posts are actually obstructive. If you can't provide
productive input, it's better not to create the appearance that
you're helping.

These are discussion groups. You make a post and a discussion follows. If the
discussion proves to be helpful to you that is fine, but you do not get to
dictate the direction, participants, or content of the discussion. It might
feel like "your thread", but that is not the case.

As for your OP, an incompatible version of jet will simply not be able to work
with an MDB file at all. Jet that is the same version, but at a different patch
level might produce some artifacts, but proper queries returning no records
(when they should) without raising error messages is not anything that I have
heard of.

The only thing I can relate that sounds even remotely similar is that I have
seen queries against ODBC sources that are used as ListBox or ComboBox
RowSources fail with an ODBC error that is silent. By that I mean that the
error message that ought to be displayed is not, and the ListBox or ComboBox
simply has a blank list as if the RowSource query had no results.

I have only seen that with ODBC sources and in the Runtime environment so I
doubt that your users are seeing the same thing.

 

[Amy Blankenship]

These are discussion groups. You make a post and a discussion follows.
If the discussion proves to be helpful to you that is fine, but you do not
get to dictate the direction, participants, or content of the discussion.
It might feel like "your thread", but that is not the case.

You know, somehow I was under the impression it was a support forum.

As for your OP, an incompatible version of jet will simply not be able to
work with an MDB file at all. Jet that is the same version, but at a
different patch level might produce some artifacts, but proper queries
returning no records (when they should) without raising error messages is
not anything that I have heard of.

Oh I am sure it does raise error messages. But these messages are not
displayed to the user.

The only thing I can relate that sounds even remotely similar is that I
have seen queries against ODBC sources that are used as ListBox or
ComboBox RowSources fail with an ODBC error that is silent. By that I
mean that the error message that ought to be displayed is not, and the
ListBox or ComboBox simply has a blank list as if the RowSource query had
no results.

Sounds like you're thinking I'm using this from within an Access
application. I'm not.

I have only seen that with ODBC sources and in the Runtime environment so
I doubt that your users are seeing the same thing.

I'm frankly quite shocked that with such a huge user base, this product does
not seem to have users at a very high level of experience answering this
type of question. For instance, in slogging through all the KB articles
that are returned when you type in "DRIVER={Microsoft Access Driver (*.mdb)"
in the search window, I've discovered many interesting facts, for instance:

1) The jet engine starts up on launch of Access itself, but starts in
other applications only when a connection is made (and presumably halts when
the connection is released). This implies that the Jet engine does not need
a service running to be able to connect, but there may be unknown factors
involved concerning how that process works in terms of permissions, etc.
2) The jet engine has memory leaks
3) Some versions of Jet have a path length limitation of 85 bytes, which
may be the issue in this case.
4) Sometimes, the Jet engine can be installed in a different language and
thus may not be called "Microsoft Access Driver (*.mdb)", so attempts to
connect to it under that name will fail.
5) TechNet has a whole bunch of utilities that enable you to look at what
the system is doing under the hood so that you can determine whether
surmises such as I made in (1) are correct.

How is it that you guys don't know _any_ of this, as experts (and you are
one recognized by Microsoft as one)? Most of these facts had nothing at all
to do with any error messages someone might see, so presumably you weren't
holding back for lack of error messages on those.

-Amy

 

['69 Camaro]

Hi, Amy.

All three of these points apply to your own post as well. Did you have
anything productive to add to the topic at hand?

Of course I do. Being rude and insulting to the many generous expert
volunteers who frequent these newsgroups and try to help those who need it
without charging a penny is one of the quickest ways to get the URL for the
$245 tech support from Microsoft, because your attitude isn't going to
compel very many experienced volunteers to jump to your aid in the future
after reading your messages, even though some of us could have fixed the
problem had it been anyone else's.

http://support.microsoft.com/oas/default.aspx?ln=en-us&x=11&y=12&prid=6689&gprid=36052

Good luck.
Gunny

 

[Amy Blankenship]

Hi, Amy.


Of course I do. Being rude and insulting to the many generous expert
volunteers who frequent these newsgroups and try to help those who need it
without charging a penny is one of the quickest ways to get the URL for
the $245 tech support from Microsoft, because your attitude isn't going to
compel very many experienced volunteers to jump to your aid in the future
after reading your messages, even though some of us could have fixed the
problem had it been anyone else's.

http://support.microsoft.com/oas/default.aspx?ln=en-us&x=11&y=12&prid=6689&gprid=36052

If they were actually trying to provide help I'd agree with you, but
unfortunately most of the replies on here have been somewhat in the vein of
"how stupid of you to even think it could be Jet." I say this with the
exception of Tony Toews, who does genuinely appear to be trying to work
towards a solution, and Douglas Steele, who was able to confirm my gut
feeling that Jet does not depend on any running services.

-Amy

 

['69 Camaro]

Everyone please note that Aaron Kem.pf is attempting to impersonate one of
our regular posters again. Jamie would never post such a message. Aaron
using the same IP address on this post as he does when he posts as
(e-mail address removed).

HTH.
Gunny

See http://www.QBuilt.com for all your database needs.
See http://www.Access.QBuilt.com for Microsoft Access tips and tutorials.
Blogs: www.DataDevilDog.BlogSpot.com, www.DatabaseTips.BlogSpot.com
http://www.Access.QBuilt.com/html/expert_contributors2.html for contact
info.

 

['69 Camaro]

Oops! Pardon me. My mistake. Jamie Collins and (e-mail address removed)
use the same computer in the UK. You picked a bad time to post when Aaron's
been busy impersonating others in the newsgroup, Jamie. I thought it was
him. You shouldn't have been posting under an assumed name so similar to
his, or I wouldn't have made the connection.

XMVP is available these days, if you care to post under another name. ;-)

Gunny

Everyone please note that Aaron Kem.pf is attempting to impersonate one
of our regular posters again. Jamie would never post such a message.
Aaron using the same IP address on this post as he does when he posts as
(e-mail address removed).

HTH.
Gunny

See http://www.QBuilt.com for all your database needs.
See http://www.Access.QBuilt.com for Microsoft Access tips and tutorials.
Blogs: www.DataDevilDog.BlogSpot.com, www.DatabaseTips.BlogSpot.com
http://www.Access.QBuilt.com/html/expert_contributors2.html for contact
info.

 

[David W. Fenton]

message
[]

Without any error messages, there's basically no help that
anyone can give you.

At this point there is no way to gather that information.

Then nobody is going to be able to help you.

What is the point
of posting to say you have no intention of being helpful?

I would be happy to offer advice if there were any information
given that would allow me to do so.

But there isn't, and you say there never will be.

I actually said there would not be for _this_ user. Who knows
when/if there will be another user with a similar problem?
However, I find it highly unlikely that _no one_ on this forum has
ever seen a failure of Jet of any kind that they could share a few
thoughts on.

Well, first off, this is an Access forum, where Access programmers
are using Jet. That means they are *not* using ODBC, since Access
refuses to use ODBC to connect to Jet data (since it's native). So
most of us would simply never have encountered any ODBC problems
with Jet.

But even those few who have wouldn't be able to help because you
haven't specified anything at all to narrow down the possibilities.
I understand that you don't *have* any information to narrow down
the possibilities because of your choice to ignore the ODBC error
information in writing your program.

It has all kinds of error reporting. It does not have any error
reporting for _this_ situation, because it was not an error I
thought I'd ever need to trap for.

ODBC will return some kind of error information, usually including
an error number and an error description (some of which are not
always terribly illuminating). All you have to do is pick up that
information from ODBC and pass it through to the user.

This is something that's a matter of programming basics,
particularly when utilizing an outside component.

You did not have to respond to my post. If you respond to a post,
it looks to others who might help as if the user is getting help,
so unhelpful posts are actually obstructive. If you can't provide
productive input, it's better not to create the appearance that
you're helping.

I *am* providing help -- I'm pointing out exactly *why* nobody is
likely to be able to help you.

We could just ignore you and offer no responses and then you'd have
no idea why you weren't getting an answer.

 

[David W. Fenton]

I have only seen that with ODBC sources and in the Runtime
environment so I doubt that your users are seeing the same thing.

She isn't using Access, so your observations don't really have any
relevance.

 

[David W. Fenton]

I'm frankly quite shocked that with such a huge user base, this
product does not seem to have users at a very high level of
experience answering this type of question. For instance, in
slogging through all the KB articles that are returned when you
type in "DRIVER={Microsoft Access Driver (*.mdb)" in the search
window, I've discovered many interesting facts, for instance:

1) The jet engine starts up on launch of Access itself, but
starts in other applications only when a connection is made (and
presumably halts when the connection is released). This implies
that the Jet engine does not need a service running to be able to
connect,

Well, D'oh! Jet is not a server database engine, so naturally there
won't be any service involved. You clearly don't even understand the
most basic things about the tools you are using.

but there may be unknown factors
involved concerning how that process works in terms of
permissions, etc. 2) The jet engine has memory leaks
3) Some versions of Jet have a path length limitation of 85
bytes, which may be the issue in this case.
4) Sometimes, the Jet engine can be installed in a different
language and thus may not be called "Microsoft Access Driver
(*.mdb)", so attempts to connect to it under that name will fail.
5) TechNet has a whole bunch of utilities that enable you to
look at what the system is doing under the hood so that you can
determine whether surmises such as I made in (1) are correct.

How is it that you guys don't know _any_ of this, as experts (and
you are one recognized by Microsoft as one)? Most of these facts
had nothing at all to do with any error messages someone might
see, so presumably you weren't holding back for lack of error
messages on those.

There's a very good reason:

WE ARE ACCESS DEVELOPERS.

You see up there at the top of your newsreader or on the web page
you're reading? It says the newsgroup name is
microsoft.public.ACCESS. It isn't microsoft.public.Jet or
microsoft.public.Jet.ODBC.

Access can *not* use ODBC to connect to Jet data files because
Access uses Jet natively. Thus, nobody in this group is going to
have any experience with using ODBC with Jet data *unless* that
experience comes from work they do *outside* of Access.

 

[Amy Blankenship]

Well, D'oh! Jet is not a server database engine, so naturally there
won't be any service involved. You clearly don't even understand the
most basic things about the tools you are using.

You really mean to tell me that there are no services running on your
computer right now that are not related to server functionality? You have a
very odd setup on your computer.

There's a very good reason:

WE ARE ACCESS DEVELOPERS.

You see up there at the top of your newsreader or on the web page
you're reading? It says the newsgroup name is
microsoft.public.ACCESS. It isn't microsoft.public.Jet or
microsoft.public.Jet.ODBC.

So you really think that none of the people ever develop an Access database
for use with other applications or connect to them with Jet? I would not
have expected a product with such a large user base to have such a narrow
focus. In the product that is my core competency, it is very common for
people to have experience in not just the program we use, but also Flash,
Access, ASP, ColdFusion, graphic design, technical writing, and
instructional design. I'm not used to the concept of a one trick pony.
Sorry. It hadn't occurred to me that Access developers would be so narrowly
focused that they wouldn't be more familiar with the technology used to
connect to Access Databases.

-Amy