I found the Excel 2007 Binary format (with extension .xlsb) perfectly suitable for my needs, since it's fast to load and very compact. I deliver a bunch of reports in Excel that carry a lot of data, and those reports are actually being loaded with an IS package.
So I assumed the conversion to this very format, read documentation on Access Ole DB Provider 12, where is written that xlsb is supported by this provider. I converted the files in Excel, and then when trying to change them in the packages (just by changing the path of the file by adding the "b" suffix), I got the following error message:
"Test connection failed because of an error in initializing provider. This
file was created in a previous beta version of Excel 2007. Open the file
with Excel 2007 to save it to the most recent version of the Excel 2007 file
format before opening the file in Access 2007."
Well, I thought that it could be some problem with the conversion of the file, so I picked up a brand new one and filled it with some information. Tried again, same error!!
Then I tried the approach with ".udl" files, same error! Then I tried to test on different machines: - My own (Windows Vista SP1) - My colleagues (Windows XP SP2) - The IS Server (Windows Server 2003 x64 SP2)
And the error persists. I found it so easy to reproduce the error, that I'm a bit surprised that I didn't find anything about it by googling around!
Can somebody help me?
Thanks in advance, Rafael