access 2003 vs Access 2007

[RonR]

it seems that a .mdb database(Access 2003) will not work on a 64 bit system.

will Access 2007 database work on a 64 bit system???

if it works will it require mostly a change to the connection string or will most of my .mdb code be worthless??

also, will the Access 2007 database work on 32 bit or will i have to maintain 2 versions of my application?

 

[jmcilhinney]

MDB files work on 64-bit systems fine, as do ACCDB files. The problem is that there is no 64-bit version of the Jet OLEDB driver, nor is there a 64-bit version of the ACE OLEDB driver. As such, 64-bit applications cannot access MDB or ACCDB files. Hopefully this will change with Office 2010 but I've not heard at this point.

When you create a .NET application, by default it is built for Any CPU, which means that it will run in 32-bit mode on a 32-bit system and in 64-bit mode on a 64-bit system. That means that your app can't access MDB or ACCDB files on a 64-bit system by default. You need to change the build configuration to x86 so that your app will run in 32-bit mode on both 32- and 64-bit systems. Your app can then use both Jet and ACE to access MDB and ACCDB files on any system.

Switching from Jet to ACE requires a connection string change only.

 

[JuggaloBrotha]

Switching from Jet to ACE requires a connection string change only.

It also requires that the ACE 12 drivers are installed on the system as well, I found out almost 2 years ago that even if you have Access 2007 installed, you still have to install the ACE 12 drivers for your app to read accdb files.

That was Office 2007, pre-SP1 so MS may have included the ACE 12 drivers with SP1 or SP2 by now.

 

[RonR]

It also requires that the ACE 12 drivers are installed on the system as well, I found out almost 2 years ago that even if you have Access 2007 installed, you still have to install the ACE 12 drivers for your app to read accdb files.

That was Office 2007, pre-SP1 so MS may have included the ACE 12 drivers with SP1 or SP2 by now.

ok. Thanks for the info. I am going to try the Compact Vesion of SQL Server.