Error: “Could Not Find Installable ISAM”

Question

I've written some VBA code in an Excel workbook to retrieve data from an Access database in the same directory on a desktop. It works fine on my machine and several other machines running Windows XP, but when we tested this on a Vista machine, we encountered the following error:

Could not find installable ISAM

I've done a bunch of searching online but can't seem to find a concrete answer. The connection string seems to be fine, and, as I mentioned, it works on several machines.

Does anyone have any idea what could be causing this? My connection string is as follows:

Provider=Microsoft.Jet.OLEDB.4.0;Data Source=D:\ptdb\Program Tracking Database.mdb;

Thanks

Answer 1

I used this to update a excel 12 xlsx file

        System.Data.OleDb.OleDbConnection MyConnection;
        System.Data.OleDb.OleDbCommand myCommand = new System.Data.OleDb.OleDbCommand();
        MyConnection = new System.Data.OleDb.OleDbConnection("provider=Microsoft.ACE.OLEDB.12.0;Data Source='D:\\Programming\\Spreadsheet-Current.xlsx';Extended Properties='Excel 12.0;HDR=YES;';");
        MyConnection.Open();
        myCommand.Connection = MyConnection;
        string sql = "Update [ArticlesV2$] set [ID]='Test' where [ActualPageId]=114";// 
        myCommand.CommandText = sql;
        myCommand.ExecuteNonQuery();
        MyConnection.Close();

Answer 2

Just use Jet OLEDB: in your connection string. it solved for me.

an example is below:

"Provider=Microsoft.Jet.OLEDB.4.0;Persist Security Info=False;Data Source=E:\Database.mdb;Jet OLEDB:Database Password=b10w"

Answer 3

Use this connection string

string connectionString = @"Provider=Microsoft.ACE.OLEDB.12.0;" +
      "Data Source=" + strFileName + ";" + "Extended Properties=" + "\"" + "Excel 12.0;HDR=YES;" + "\"";

Answer 4

I have just encountered a very similar problem.

Like you, my connection string appeared correct--and indeed, exactly the same connection string was working in other scenarios.

The problem turned out to be a lack of resources. 19 times out of 20, I would see the "Could not find installable ISAM," but once or twice (without any code changes at all), it would yield "Out of memory" instead.

Rebooting the machine "solved" the problem (for now...?). This happened using Jet version 4.0.9505.0 on Windows XP.

Answer 5

Place single quotes around the Extended Properties:

OleDbConnection oconn = 
    new OleDbConnection(
        @"Provider=Microsoft.Jet.OLEDB.4.0;Data Source=" + path + ";Extended Properties='Excel 8.0;HDR=YES;IMEX=1;';");

Try it, it really works.

Answer 6

Have you checked this http://support.microsoft.com/kb/209805? In particular, whether you have Msrd3x40.dll.

You may also like to check that you have the latest version of Jet: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/239114