I had this test program that used a connection string to open a Jet format database. Worked just fine. I copied the connection string over to a more complex project, and all of a sudden I got an exception saying “Could not find installable ISAM”. Wow. Looking around, there’s lots of info about that message, some of it from Microsoft, like here and here. None of that seemed to have anything to do with my problem, though.

Know what it was? The connection string should have been this: Provider=Microsoft.Jet.OLEDB.4.0;Mode=Share Deny None;data source=blah.mdb;user id=Admin;password=;, but instead I had accidentally modified it to this: Provider=Microsoft.Jet.OLEDB.4.0;Mode=Share Deny None;datasource=blah.mdb;user id=Admin;password=;

Spot the difference? Yeah, right… Microsoft: how about an “Unknown parameter in connection string” exception, or at least a “Missing ‘data source’ parameter”. Could not find installable ISAM? WTF?

Another thing I don’t like about OneCare: it wants me to set automatic updates to the highest level, where they are automatically downloaded and installed. I don’t like to do that for a number of reasons – I just don’t want my computer trying to handle that kind of thing without me being there (and I have it running all day and night), and there are lots of situations during my workday when I just don’t want an automatic update to happen on my system. For example, when I’m giving a presentation, or simply when I’m in the middle of work with 28 windows open and two virtual machines running.

I understand Microsoft’s need to make the average user understand the necessity of regular updates, but showing everybody red status symbols all the time because they prefer to do things in their own time is not the way to go.

Right, as you can see, the other problem I posted about is also still there – I actually found an update to install today (MSXML or something), and there are several optional updates available right now for language packs I don’t need, but there’s no critical or security update anywhere to be found…