Could not find installable ISAM… my a*$%
I had this test program that used a connection string to open a Jet format database. Worked just fine. I copied the connection string over to a more complex project, and all of a sudden I got an exception saying “Could not find installable ISAM”. Wow. Looking around, there’s lots of info about that message, some of it from Microsoft, like here and here. None of that seemed to have anything to do with my problem, though.
Know what it was? The connection string should have been this: Provider=Microsoft.Jet.OLEDB.4.0;Mode=Share Deny None;data source=blah.mdb;user id=Admin;password=;, but instead I had accidentally modified it to this: Provider=Microsoft.Jet.OLEDB.4.0;Mode=Share Deny None;datasource=blah.mdb;user id=Admin;password=;
Spot the difference? Yeah, right… Microsoft: how about an “Unknown parameter in connection string” exception, or at least a “Missing ‘data source’ parameter”. Could not find installable ISAM? WTF?
i just fu$&!ing fixed this error as well i forgot how horrid the error descriptions are sometimes for these products.
Comment by yeah dude — 2/1/2007 @ 5:25 am - 1 year, 6 months ago
Thanks a million!!!! Struggled for hours on this one
Comment by Linda — 28/2/2007 @ 2:34 am - 1 year, 4 months ago
I had this problem too.
I found that the path I was using was OK for my workstation but not the server..
I had to use UNC address for the SQLserver to see the file.
eg. \\servername\sharedfolder\folder2 instead of F:\folder2
HTH
Greg
Comment by GregN — 4/4/2007 @ 2:58 am - 1 year, 3 months ago
I’m just learning this stuff, and I’d spent about 2 futile and frustrating hours trying various other "solutions" from Microsoft and others. Many thanks for the one that worked.
Comment by Michael — 1/6/2007 @ 3:00 pm - 1 year, 1 month ago