Could Not find installable ISAM

thelarster

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Joined
Mar 1, 2007
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8
Scenario - we have many Excel files that were made in Excel 2007 that have data connections to Access databases. They work fine as is on a file share with read access for the greater audience.

If anyone with Excel 2010 opens the Excel file, saves it (no changes made) the 2007 users cannot open the file any longer, they receive the error Could Not find installable ISAM error.

We can still open the files in Excel 2010 and if we give the 2007 user Write access to the file share, it starts to work.

Any ideas?
 

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Are you connecting using DAO? Office 2010 uses a different DAO library so I'm guessing that you are seeing the classic version issue:
Open in a newer version --> Upgrades references.
Now open in original version --> Error (can't be forward compatible).

Try keeping 2 versions of the workbook if that's feasible, and get users on 2010 to use their own dedicated version.

Denis
 
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Are you connecting using DAO? Office 2010 uses a different DAO library so I'm guessing that you are seeing the classic version issue:
Open in a newer version --> Upgrades references.
Now open in original version --> Error (can't be forward compatible).

Try keeping 2 versions of the workbook if that's feasible, and get users on 2010 to use their own dedicated version.

Denis

No, we aren't using DAO and keeping different version of the file won't work. There are hundreds of users but thanks for the suggestion and quick reply!

My connection string if it helps:

Provider=Microsoft.ACE.OLEDB.12.0;User ID=Admin;Data Source=\\usnt17\CS_Reporting\Dow\ORH\Daily Alert Reports\Global Trading\GT Daily Alert.accdb;Mode=Share Deny Write;Extended Properties=\"Excel 12.0 Xml;HDR=YES\";Jet OLEDB:System database="";Jet OLEDB:Registry Path="";Jet OLEDB:Engine Type=6;Jet OLEDB:Database Locking Mode=0;Jet OLEDB:Global Partial Bulk Ops=2;Jet OLEDB:Global Bulk Transactions=1;Jet OLEDB:New Database Password="";Jet OLEDB:Create System Database=False;Jet OLEDB:Encrypt Database=False;Jet OLEDB:Don't Copy Locale on Compact=False;Jet OLEDB:Compact Without Replica Repair=False;Jet OLEDB:SFP=False;Jet OLEDB:Support Complex Data=False;Jet OLEDB:Bypass UserInfo Validation=False
 
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Actually, thinking about it I have always given users read/write access to the share folder. It is pretty well a requirement, because when you open a copy of Access you create a lock file. That lock file can't be created in a read-only environment, and the database won't open.

Can't find installable ISAM is a sign that you may have corruption lurking in your system. It is certainly one of the diagnostics but can occur for other reasons.
And Office 2010 is not as backward compatible as you would expect. Part of this is due to VBA undergoing a language revision, from 6 to 7, which results in a different registry location. See... Changes in Access 2010 (for ITPros)

Denis
 
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We've been working with some Microsoft techs and they said the same thing about read/write access and they were actually shocked our 2007 users can access the files even before we brought 2010 into the picture. I was going to try and have the connection to a .xls instead of the Access database to see if that made a difference.

ISAM error occurs on every 2007 machine that tries to open the file saved by a 2010 user so we didn't think it was corruption but like you indicated a compatibility issue. I'll read that article...

I appreciate the responses. I was hoping for a 'workaround' but maybe making the file share(s) read/write is our only option.
 
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My connection string if it helps:

Provider=Microsoft.ACE.OLEDB.12.0;User ID=Admin;Data Source=\\usnt17\CS_Reporting\Dow\ORH\Daily Alert Reports\Global Trading\GT Daily Alert.accdb;Mode=Share Deny Write;Extended Properties=\"Excel 12.0 Xml;HDR=YES\";Jet OLEDB:System database="";Jet OLEDB:Registry Path="";Jet OLEDB:Engine Type=6;Jet OLEDB:Database Locking Mode=0;Jet OLEDB:Global Partial Bulk Ops=2;Jet OLEDB:Global Bulk Transactions=1;Jet OLEDB:New Database Password="";Jet OLEDB:Create System Database=False;Jet OLEDB:Encrypt Database=False;Jet OLEDB:Don't Copy Locale on Compact=False;Jet OLEDB:Compact Without Replica Repair=False;Jet OLEDB:SFP=False;Jet OLEDB:Support Complex Data=False;Jet OLEDB:Bypass UserInfo Validation=False

I had the same problem and I found if you add "Jet OLEDB:" in front of your Data Source you don't get the error.
 
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After playing around further I found it was not adding "Jet OLEDB:" but adding "Persist Security Info=False;"
 
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After playing around further I found it was not adding "Jet OLEDB:" but adding "Persist Security Info=False;"

Same problem here, I removed the portion of the string that says: ";Jet OLEDB:Bypass UserInfo Validation=False", and my users seem to be fine now.
 
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I agree this works but then if someone else opens it and I open it after them, the string gets put back in.
 
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