Accessing MDB through VBS

Question

I am trying to update an MDB using a VBS script. On one machine it works OK (WinXP and Office 2003) but on the other (Win7 64 bits VM with Office 2010) I get the error "ActiveX Component can't create object: 'DAO.DBEngine.36'". The code:

Dim dbe
Set dbe = CreateObject("DAO.DBEngine.36")

I tried with DAO.DBEngine, DAO.DBEngine.120 and .140 with no difference.
I don't understand where is the problem. Any clue ?

Update: I found I could make it work by callink the script like this:

c:\windows\syswow64\wscript MyScript.vbs Myargument

Apparently to call the 32 bits Wscript you must call it from syswow64, while the Wscript in system32 is the 64 bits version. A bit strange...

Did you run your script with the [32-bit interpreter](http://stackoverflow.com/a/2429502/1630171)? — Ansgar Wiechers, Feb 25 '13 at 17:02
Before thinking about how to enforce something I'd suggest checking if it actually solves the problem. — Ansgar Wiechers, Feb 26 '13 at 09:38
@AnsgarWiechers: +1 many thanks, I had not seen the link in your first comment ! You should put your comment in an answer so I close the question. — iDevlop, Feb 26 '13 at 14:17
Possible duplicate of [Cannot use CreateObject from VB scripts on Windows 7 x64](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/2429477/cannot-use-createobject-from-vb-scripts-on-windows-7-x64) — Cristian Ciupitu, Nov 29 '15 at 04:49

score 4 · Answer 1 · answered Feb 25 '13 at 17:04

In 64 bits OS .vbs start as 64 bit process, so you need to restart (at the beginning) your script as 32 bit process.

'call it here
Force32bit

Dim dbe
Set dbe = CreateObject("DAO.DBEngine.36")

'just for testing:
WScript.Echo TypeName(dbe) 'DBEngine

'the rest of the code here...
Set dbe = Nothing

Sub Force32bit()
    Dim sWinDir, sSys64, sSys32, oShell
    Set oShell = CreateObject("WScript.Shell")
    sWinDir = oShell.ExpandEnvironmentStrings("%WinDir%")
    With CreateObject("Scripting.FileSystemObject")
        sSys64 = .BuildPath(sWinDir, "SysWOW64")
        If Not .FolderExists(sSys64) Then Exit Sub
        sSys32 = .BuildPath(sWinDir, "System32")
        If sSys32 = WScript.Path Then
            oShell.CurrentDirectory = sSys64
            oShell.Run "wscript.exe " & Chr(34) & _
            WScript.ScriptFullName & Chr(34), 1, False
            WScript.Quit
        End If
    End With
End Sub

That seems to make me lose the arguments: I have a line checking it with `if WScript.Arguments.Count = 0 then ...` which now acts like no arg is provided — iDevlop, Feb 26 '13 at 09:19
@iDevlop - That is the base idea to have self-contained script. And of course you can modify my function to use arguments and append them to `oShell.Run` command. — Panayot Karabakalov, Feb 26 '13 at 17:17

score 1 · Accepted Answer · edited May 23 '17 at 11:45

1

You may need to run the script with the 32-bit version of the script interpreter:

%SystemRoot%\SysWOW64\wscript.exe C:\path\to\script.vbs

Taken from this answer to a similar question.

edited May 23 '17 at 11:45

Community

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answered Feb 26 '13 at 15:27

Ansgar Wiechers

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Accessing MDB through VBS

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