No of fields in a Data Source

[syfam]

MS-Access 97 is used to generate a TEXT datasource - then via automation
loads MS-Word 97 connected to this text data source.

This TEXT datasource contains ONE record - with over 300 fields and this
process has been working fine with Win 98 and Win 2000 for years (just keeps
going regardless of how many fields added).

The client just updated a PC with Win XP but kept their Word97 software
license as its all they need, and now the same process fails to recognise the
data source.

I can easily open and connect when MS-Word 97 is running on a Win98 or Win
2000 PC - but MS-Word 97 refuses to connect to the data source on the XP
machine.

I have discovered that if I reduce the number of fields to exactly 256 - it
connects fine - if I increase the number of fields to 257 it fails.

Has anyone seen this problem and if so how can it be resolved?

 

[Cindy M -WordMVP-]

Hi =?Utf-8?B?c3lmYW0=?=,

Likely, this is a question of the connection method plus MDAC version. First
thing you'd need to ascertain is, which connection method is/was used to link
the data source into the document.

1. The document is already connected to the data source? Or automation also
takes care of doing the connecting?

2. Assuming the data source was connected into the document manually: What steps
(exactly) were followed in Word to make the connection? If the connection is
done using VBA, what's the OpenDataSource code?

3. Do you have any way of finding out whether the ODBC Text driver was installed
on the old machine? By default, Word 97 would have used that if it was present.
But the text ODBC drivers have changed in the meantime and Word 97 could be
having problems with that. You might need to remove the ODBC driver from the
installation, uninstall then reinstall Office again so that it loads its text
ODBC driver (I think you have to select it, explicitly, during setup).

MS-Access 97 is used to generate a TEXT datasource - then via automation
loads MS-Word 97 connected to this text data source.

This TEXT datasource contains ONE record - with over 300 fields and this
process has been working fine with Win 98 and Win 2000 for years (just keeps
going regardless of how many fields added).

The client just updated a PC with Win XP but kept their Word97 software
license as its all they need, and now the same process fails to recognise the
data source.

I can easily open and connect when MS-Word 97 is running on a Win98 or Win
2000 PC - but MS-Word 97 refuses to connect to the data source on the XP
machine.

I have discovered that if I reduce the number of fields to exactly 256 - it
connects fine - if I increase the number of fields to 257 it fails.

Has anyone seen this problem and if so how can it be resolved?

Cindy Meister
INTER-Solutions, Switzerland
http://homepage.swissonline.ch/cindymeister (last update Jun 8 2004)
http://www.word.mvps.org

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