[thelist] ms access website solution?

david.landy at somerfield.co.uk david.landy at somerfield.co.uk
Wed May 5 10:12:44 CDT 2004


Ken,

>What exactly happened? What did you find on the web? 
>What version of MDAC are we talking about?

I was running ASP on a database created in Access 97 using Jet 3.51. I
replicated it. All worked fine and all the creatures were happy in
server-land.

Then I upgraded to *BIG BAD* MDAC 2.1. After that, I got the follwing terse
message every time I tried to insert a row (and quite possibly when I tried
to update rows, too): 

"Operation not supported on replicable databases that have not been
converted to the current version."

What I found on the MS Knowledge Base was that "this behavior is by design".
[Erm, which design feature would that be, by the way??]

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;230152

The recommended workaround is "to use the Microsoft Jet OLE DB 3.51
provider." [From where?? It doesn't say that either] or to follow links to
other pages to ensure Jet 3.51 is installed correctly.

The links to checking Jet 3.51 were comprehensive and educational, if
somewhat time-consuming. In the end they helped me identify the files which
comprised Jet 3.51 and extract and re-install them, overwriting the
*NAUGHTY* ones that MDAC 2.1 had installed. As I said before, there was no
rollback for MDAC 2.1.

And all was well again.

So... after some hair-pulling and a fair amount of time-wasting, I ended up
right back where I started. 

My complaint is this: 

1. Given that MS state that "this behavior is by design", and the KB article
was published long after MDAC 2.1 came out, why was there no warning about
this on the MDAC 2.1 page? My trust in MS was severely eroded as a result of
this. Clearly, it's a case of Caveat Canem or is it Caveat Emptor? I was
further frustrated by not being able to find a place where I could complain
about this to anyone at Microsoft without paying for the privilege, despite
having paid for several of their products (eg the Windows that ran on the
server that had this problem).

Having said that, my recent experience of MS support was excellent: they
charged me UKP 29 for a single (unrelated) incident and I had many emails
back and forth with them about the issue. They were prompt, attentive and
helpful, and only charged me when I was satisified with the result and the
incident was closed, and am free at any time to re-open the incident if it
rears its ugly head again. I *believe* (but I'm not sure) that if your issue
is because of a real bug, they won't charge you. Is that so? Anyhow, 10 out
of 10 for the MS support team on that one.

>The Jet v4 OLEDB Provider and Jet v4 ODBC Driver will happily connect to 
>v3 databases. Alternatively, you can keep using the v3.51 Jet OLEDB
Provider. 
>There's no reason you need to "upgrade" to Access2000

No. Unless you ever want to be able to open them again on your desktop...

>If you just want to convert them to v4, you can use JRO 
>(Jet Replication Objects), which has a "Compact and Repair" method. 

Thanks for the info about PWS's max connections - by the way, why limit it
to 10? Is this to "encourage" people to buy IIS? 

And thanks for the tips about how to create a db using JRO and OLE DB, and
for the pointer about the Action Pack. That sounds like a great deal.

Take care,

David.
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