Microsoft Excel Initialization Settings

The Jet\3.5\Engines\Excel folder includes initialization settings for the Msexcl35.dll driver, used for external access to Microsoft Excel worksheets. Typical settings for the entries in this folder are shown in the following example.

win32=<path>\MSEXCL35.dll
TypeGuessRows=8
ImportMixedTypes=Text
AppendBlankRows=01
FirstRowHasNames=01

The Microsoft Jet database engine uses the Excel folder entries as follows.

Entry Description
win32 The location of Msexcl35.dll. The full path is determined at the time of installation. Values are of type String for Windows 95 and Windows NT 4.0, and of type REG_SZ for Windows NT 3.51.
TypeGuessRows The number of rows to be checked for the data type. The data type is determined given the maximum number of kinds of data found. If there is a tie, the data type is determined in the following order: Number, Currency, Date, Text, Boolean. If data is encountered that does not match the data type guessed for the column, it is returned as a Null value. On import, if a column has mixed data types, the entire column will be cast according to the ImportMixedTypes setting.

The default number of rows to be checked is 8. Values are of type DWORD for Windows 95 and Windows NT 4.0, and of type REG_DWORD for Windows NT 3.51.

ImportMixedTypes Can be set to MajorityType or Text. If set to MajorityType, columns of mixed data types will be cast to the predominate data type on import. If set to Text, columns of mixed data types will be cast to Text on import. The default is Text. Values are of type String for Windows 95 and Windows NT 4.0, and of type REG_SZ for Windows NT 3.51.
AppendBlankRows The number of blank rows to be appended to the end of a Version 3.5 or Version 4.0 worksheet before new data is added. For example, if AppendBlankRows is set to 4, Microsoft Jet will append 4 blank rows to the end of the worksheet before appending rows that contain data. Integer values for this setting can range from 0 to 16; the default is 01 (one additional row appended). Values are of type DWORD for Windows 95 and Windows NT 4.0, and of type REG_DWORD for Windows NT 3.51.
FirstRowHasNames A binary value that indicates whether the first row of the table contains column names. A value of 01 indicates that, during import, column names are taken from the first row. A value of 00 indicates no column names in the first row; column names appear as F1, F2, F3, and so on. The default is 01. Values are of type Binary for Windows 95 and Windows NT 4.0, and of type REG_BINARY for Windows NT 3.51.