The ISAM Formats key is used by client applications to enumerate the available data formats and to find the corresponding engine that supports each format. The ISAM Formats key is located at \HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Jet
\3.5\ISAM Formats, and contains a subkey for each data format supported. The following table describes the registry settings contained in the data format subkeys and gives example values.
| Setting | Description | Example values |
| Engine | Provides the name of the engine. | “Paradox”, “Xbase” |
| ExportFilter | Provides a filter string that is passed to the common open dialog boxes used for exporting files. | “Paradox (*.db)” |
| ImportFilter | Provides a filter string that is passed to the common open dialog boxes used for importing files. | “Paradox (*.db)” |
| CanLink | True if Microsoft Jet supports linking to this format. Possible values are 01 (True) and 00 (False). | 01, 00 |
| IsamType | Specifies the transfer macro this ISAM driver applies to (used by Microsoft Access) where 0 = database, 1 = spreadsheet, and 2 = text. | 0, 1, 2 |
| OneTablePerFile | Specifies whether the ISAM driver has one table per file and is required by client applications that need to prompt for file names. Possible values are 01 (True) and 00 (False). | 01, 00 |
| IndexDialog | Specifies whether the ISAM driver requires a separate dialog box for index files. If the value of this setting is True, then a value for the IndexFilter setting must also be provided. Possible values are 01 (True) and 00 (False). | 01, 00 |
| IndexFilter | This setting has the same format as the Filter setting, but is used to prompt for index file names. | “FoxPro Index (*.idx; *.cdx)” |
| CreateDBOnExport | If set to True, the file name specified for export need not exist for the export to function. Possible values are 01 (True) and 00 (False). | 01, 00 |
| ResultTextImport | The common dialog result string for importing. | “Import data and objects from the external database into the current database.” |
| ResultTextLink | The common dialog result string for linking. | “Create tables in the current database that are linked to tables in the external file.” |
| ResultTextExport | The common dialog result string for exporting. | “Export data from the current database into an Excel spreadsheet.” |
| SupportsLongNames | If set to 01 (True), supports the Windows 95 long file name convention. Possible values are 01 (True) and 00 (False). | 01, 00 |
The rest of this section gives the settings and values for each data format subkey that the ISAM Formats key contains.