Vista compatibility problems with Word 2000 mailmerge

[jrtman50]

I upgraded to Vista from XP and now none of my Word 2000 mailmerge document
work. I receive “Open database connectivity error. No data source name
found or default driver.†The program freezes if I try to relink the template
to an access query. The mailmerge is tied into queries in Access 2000. The
links between Word and Access no longer exist or are not accessible. If I
try to make a new mailmerge docs from scratch, several copies of Access are
immediately opened each time I create a new mailmerge document or open one.
I would like to use all of the mailmerge docs I created in Office 97 & Office
2000, which worked fine and didn't open a copy of access each time I opened
the mailmerge doc. Any suggestions? Am I out of luck using vista?

 

[Peter Jamieson]

I'm not in a position to diagnose this problem, but
1. If you had to install Vista from scratch (I know you said "upgrade", but
some people have to do that) you may have lost any ODBC data source names
that Microsoft Word expects. If you can go
if Vista is complaining about the ODBC components, I would consider trying
to re-install them. ODBC is included in Vista (the 32-bit version, at any
rate) but see

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/870630/en-us

You might also need this, although it doesn't sound like it to me:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/937248/en-us

 

[jrtman50]

Peter, you are correct, I didn't "upgrade" to Vista, I got a new Vista
computer. I figured out how to get the link back between the Access Query
and the Word mail merge template, but it takes as lot of work since I have so
many different queries and the mail merge docs don't specifiy which query
they are tied into. The following is what I must do for EACH mail merge doc
to get it working again. I don't know enough about the actual programming
language to understand how these problems developed. Thanks for your input.
Jeff

1. Law database must be properly linked to Raw Data or nothing in word works.
2. Open template as document, not template.
3. Click tools on drop down menu.
4. Select Mail merge.
5. Select data source, Get Data.
6. Open data source.
7. At files of type select: choose MsAccess.
8. Check select method.
9. Double click Law.
10. Check Show All.
11. Select MsAccess Database via ODBC (*.mdb)
12. Click Ok.
13. Switchboard Items should be showing. Select Options.
14. Check Tables; Check Views.
15. Click OK.
16. Select proper query.
17. Click Ok.
18. Close.
19. Save template.

 

[Peter Jamieson]

If you are starting from a new Vista installation, the thing most likely to
be missing on your system is the ODBC DSNs that your Word documents (and
possibly Access databases) expect to find. A DSN is a "Data Source Name"
that you can create in the ODBC Administrator - have a look at Vista
button|Control Panel|Administrative tools (if you can find that)|Data SOurce
(ODBC). It is possible that the DSNs you had on your previous system have
not been created by Vista or during re-installation of Office 2000. In
particular, there should probably be a "User DSN" called "MS Access
Database". If your system was set up by someone else, it is also possible
that they created DSNs for specific purposes. Unfortunately, because you
cannot open a WOrd Mail Merge Main Document unless the data source is
present, it is sometimes impossible to discover what the data source used to
be (as you have discovered,).

1. Law database must be properly linked to Raw Data or nothing in word
works.

What do you have to do to achieve this linking? Are you linking a front-end
Access database to a back-end one, or is this something else altogether? If
you are linking via ODBC and are having problems linking, it could also be
because of a missing DSN.