HOWTO: MDAC Setup Troubleshooting Guide

• Microsoft Data Access Components versions 2.0, 2.1

SUMMARY

This article presents a step-by-step troubleshooting guide for MDAC setup issues.

MORE INFORMATION

The following is a list of troubleshooting steps to follow if you are having MDAC setup issues.

1. Shut down all Windows NT services and Windows applications that are using MDAC.
   
   When you run MDAC setup it installs new data access DLLs and also updates existing system DLLs on the system. If one or more of these DLLs is in use by an application, it can lead to unsuccessful MDAC setup. Before running the MDAC setup program Mdac_typ.exe, close all applications that use MDAC with Windows NT services and close all applications on the computer. This is the number one reason that Microsoft Product Support Services has determined can cause MDAC setup to fail. In many cases, simply closing all applications and MDAC using services and re-running the MDAC installer will properly configure MDAC after a failed setup. The following Microsoft applications and services use MDAC components:
   
   • Certificate Server
   
   
   
   • Exchange Server
   
   
   
   • Internet Explorer
   
   
   
   • Internet Information Server
   
   
   
   • Microsoft Office (All Office Applications)
   
   
   
   • Outlook and Outlook Express
   
   
   
   • SNA Server
   
   
   
   • SMS Server
   
   
   
   • SQL Server
   
   
   
   • Visual Studio (All Development Products)
   
   
   
   Note that the earlier list details the most common products that use MDAC. For best results, close all user applications before running MDAC.
   
   To completely make sure that no MDAC DLLs are in use on the system, you can run a popular 3rd party utility called NThandles for Windows NT (or DllView for Window 95/98 computers) available from:

   http://www.sysinternals.com

   Using the search facility in these utilities, search for Odbc32.dll, Oledb32.dll, and Msado15.dll. Any process that is using one of these DLLs is using MDAC components and should be closed prior to installing MDAC.
   



2. Make sure that you are logged on as an Administrator on Windows NT.
   
   Note that on Windows 95 and Windows 98 computers, this step does not apply. In order to properly install DLLs and create registry settings, the MDAC installer requires that you are logged in with Administrator privileges on a Windows NT computer. Failure to do so may result in a failed MDAC setup, because MDAC will not have the proper security privileges to write DLLs to the system folder or make registry changes. You may see the following error messages:

   Setup Error 168 - Setup has encountered a problem updating your system registry

   Insufficient Privileges - You do not have sufficient privileges to install here




3. Disable any anti-virus or disk security software applications running on the computer.
   
   Many anti-virus and disk security software applications run memory resident programs that can interfere with the installation of other software. Before installing MDAC, temporarily disable any anti-virus and disk security software applications running on the computer.



4. Ensure you have adequate hard drive space to install MDAC MDAC requires at least 40 MB of free hard-drive space in order to install correctly.
   
   Note that MDAC installs files into the Program Files folder as well as into the system folder (Windows\System on a Windows 95 or 98 computer or WinNT\System32 on a Windows NT computer). In most cases, these folders will be located on the C: drive, but the folders can be set up on any drive on the computer.



5. Make sure you have a valid TEMP folder defined and that there is adequate space on the TEMP drive.
   
   When the MDAC installer starts running, it extracts all of the MDAC files into the TEMP drive defined on your system. Therefore you will need at least 40 MB of free hard-drive space on the drive where TEMP resides. You can determine the location of your TEMP drive by opening up a MS-DOS command prompt and entering SET and then clicking Enter. A list of environment variable settings should appear and in the list you should see TEMP= and TMP= followed by a folder location such as C:\TEMP or C:\WINDOWS\TEMP. The TEMP folder listed must exist and be located on a drive with at least 40 MB of free space.



6. Make sure that Windows 95 computers have DCOM95 installed.
   
   All Windows 95 computers need to have DCOM95 installed before running MDAC setup. You can download DCOM95 from the following Web location:
   
   

   Microsoft COM Downloads and CD-ROMs

   Ensure that you fully install DCOM95 and restart the computer before attempting to install MDAC.



7. Install MDAC from a mapped drive on Windows 95 computers.
   
   There have been reported cases where installing MDAC from a UNC path has failed on Windows 95 computers. Map a network drive or copy the MDAC installer locally before installing on Windows 95.



8. If Installing MDAC on Terminal Server

Q216149 How to Install ODBC or MDAC on Terminal Server

MDAC Setup has failed. What should I do now?

• Quiet mode failing If MDAC setup has failed while running in quiet mode (for example some applications may install MDAC silently as part of their installation program). Try to run the standard mode installation of MDAC on the computer.
  
  The general recommendation is to download the latest version of MDAC from:

  http://www.microsoft.com/data

  and install this first before re-running the silent installer (or application setup that uses the MDAC silent installer).



• Manually extract Mdac_typ.exe. When you run the MDAC setup, it extracts all the setup files into the system defined TEMP directory first before continuing. You can manually extract the MDAC files yourself and run the setup directly as well. This is a good trouble-shooting step if you think that the computer may not have a properly defined TEMP folder. To extract the MDAC setup files, copy the MDAC installer (Mdac_typ.exe) to the C:\ root folder and run the following command from Start menu click Run:

  C:\mdac_typ.exe /c /t:c:\MDACSetup 

  The above command starts the MDAC installer and extract the files into a folder named C:\MDACSetup (it automatically creates the folder if it does not exist). Once the files are extracted, the MDAC installer quits (it does not attempt to install MDAC). Once the files are extracted, run the extracted Setup.exe inside the C:\MDACSetup folder to start the MDAC installer in "extracted mode".



• Use logging. The MDAC setup program has advanced setup logging capabilities. You can run MDAC Setup with log file generation and then examine the log file to determine what portion of MDAC setup failed. This log file will also contain any errors that occur during installation. In order to run MDAC setup with logging, first extract out the MDAC setup program as detailed in the earlier section and then run the following command from Start menu click Run:
  

  C:\MDACSetup\Setup.exe /gc C:\Mdaclog.txt 

  Note you can avoid the extraction step by running the following command directly:
  

  C:\Mdac_typ.exe /C:"Setup /GC C:\Mdaclog.txt 

  Once the setup is complete you can examine c:\Mdaclog.txt in notepad to gain more information about where the setup failed.



• Cannot find Setup.lst. If the folder that you are running MDAC setup from, has another Setup.exe in it, MDAC setup displays the following error:

  Setup cannot access the required initialization file '\FolderName\Setup.lst'

  The workaround for this problem is to remove or rename the Setup.exe file or start MDAC setup from different folder.



• Uninstall MDAC. In rare circumstances you may need to completely un-install MDAC before continuing with re-installation. For example, if you want to remove a later version of MDAC and install an older version of MDAC, you cannot over-install the older version (the MDAC installer will not over-write a newer DLL version with an older version dll). Also in cases where all of the above recommendations fail on a normal setup, re-configuring MDAC is a good next step.
  
  The MDAC setup program does not have a built-in un-uninstall feature. Microsoft Product Support has a Component Checker tool designed to diagnose and re-configure (un-install and re-install) MDAC.

I think MDAC setup worked, how can I verify that MDAC is setup correctly?

• First check that the ODBC Administrator is working. Open the Control Panel and select the ODBC Data Sources icon. A dialog box should appear with the title "ODBC Data Source Administrator". Attempt to create a new ODBC datasource via the following steps:
  
  1. Select the System DSN tab in the ODBC Administrator.
  
  
  
  2. Click Add to create a new ODBC data source
  
  
  
  3. Select Microsoft Access Driver (*.mdb) from the list and click Finish.
  
  
  
  4. Type TEST in the Data Source Name edit box.
  
  
  
  5. Click Create.
  
  
  
  6. Type in C:\TEST.MDB in the Database Name edit box and click OK. At this point a message box should appear indicating that a database was successfully created. Click OK.
  
  
  
  7. Click OK again to close the ODBC Microsoft Access Setup dialog box and create a new ODBC datasource.
  
  
  
  8. Next click OK to close the ODBC Administrator dialog box.
  
  
  
  If the earlier steps complete successfully, you can be fairly certain that the ODBC core files and ODBC administrator are set up correctly.



• Next, create a Microsoft DataLink file and test a connection to the TEST datasource created earlier through the following steps:
  
  1. Right-click on the computer's desktop and from the New menu select Microsoft Data Link. This should create a new file on the desktop named "New Microsoft Data Link.udl"
  
  
  
  2. Double-click on the New Microsoft Data Link.udl file to open the Data Link Properties dialog box.
  
  
  
  3. Select TEST (the data source you created earlier) in the "Use data source name" drop-down box.
  
  
  
  4. Click Test Connection button. At this point you should see a message box indicating "Test connection succeeded".
  
  
  
  If the earlier steps complete successfully, you have performed test of both OLE DB and ODBC as well as the Access ODBC driver.

Q229029 SAMPLE: AdoDataGrid.exe Demonstrates How to Use ADO with DataGrid Control Using Visual C++

http://www.microsoft.com/support/supportnet/overview/overview.asp

REFERENCES

For additional information, please see the following article(s) in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

Q154871 Determining If You Are Eligible for No-Charge Technical Support

Q238239 INFO: List of Files Installed by MDAC 2.1 SP 2

Q232053 INFO: List of Files Installed by MDAC 2.1 (GA)

Q243069 INFO: List of Useful MDAC Setup Related Articles

© Microsoft Corporation 1999, All Rights Reserved.
Contributions by Saqib Rasool, Microsoft Corporation

Additional query words: crash nuke ipf implode gpf abend blue screen

Keywords : kbMDAC kbGrpVCDB kbGrpMDAC kbDSupport kbMDAC200 kbMDAC210
Version : WINDOWS:2.0,2.1
Platform : WINDOWS
Issue type : kbhowto