What to Do When You're Having Trouble with an MDAC Installation

Many issues can arise when installing a version of the Microsoft Data Access Components (MDAC). Sometimes the problems are the result of an installation gone wrong and, in other cases, it may just be that the newer MDAC breaks something that used to work. In the installation instructions that come with the MDAC, Microsoft specifically states that you cannot roll back to previous versions of the MDAC, and instead recommends reinstalling the Windows NT operating system or using backups to recover a previous installation of the OS.

It turns out that, in fact, there is another alternative. Microsoft has a utility called the Component Checker. Its main purpose is to uncover mismatched MDAC .dll files on your system. But luckily, it is more than a diagnostic tool. It turns out that if you use the /d switch when you start it, it will give you an extra option to allow you to roll back to a prior version of the MDAC. You only need to actually provide the install program from the older MDAC to do so. The entire recovery process will only take about 10 minutes. The component checker is available for download in the same place the MDAC is (http://www.microsoft.com/data).

Microsoft has an article in their knowledgebase that gives details on the exact usage of the component checker. Please see Q231383 in the Microsoft Knowledgebase, or follow this link:

http://support.microsoft.com/support/kb/articles/Q231/3/83.ASP

(Originally Published on TeraTech's ColdCuts site as http://www.teratech.com/ColdCuts/cutdetail.cfm?cutid=89.)

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