[en] Connectivity to Office documents on 64-bit platforms

[en] Before you can use data from Microsoft Office files such as MS Access (*.mdb and *.accdb) and MS Excel (*.xls, *.xlsx, and *.xlsb) in NiceLabel, you must have appropriate database drivers installed. When you install MS Office, also install appropriate database drivers.

[en] If you don't have Microsoft Office installed, you must install database drivers yourself. Microsoft offers the "runtime/redistributable" packages for download. Microsoft Access Database Engine 2010 Redistributable for download. Installing this software adds the necessary ODBC and OLE DB drivers. The redistributable package exists in two flavors, as 32-bit and 64-bit installation. The version you would install depends on the application that will connect to the Office data files.

[en] You can download the database drivers from Microsoft:

[en] If you have 32-bit system, all NiceLabel products run in 32-bit mode. You can only install 32-bit version of Database Engine.

[en] If you have a 64-bit system, most of the NiceLabel applications run in 64-bit mode, but Automation Builder runs in 32-bit mode. Automation service auto-determines the Windows system version and runs as 32-bit or 64-bit. When you test your triggers in Automation Builder, they might not function the same in Automation service, because the service uses 64-bit database drivers.

[en] In this case, you must install 64-bit version of the Database Engine on the machine that has NiceLabel Automation service installed.

[en] When you use the same machine to configure your triggers in Automation Builder and execute triggers in the Automation service, you must have installed support for 32-bit and 64-bit database drivers.

[en] To have both database drivers installed on the same system, you must have Microsoft Office installed. It doesn't matter which version of Microsoft Office you have, it can be 32-bit or 64-bit. The key point is that you install Microsoft Access Database Engine 2010 Redistributable of the opposite "bitness". If you have 64-bit Microsoft Office, then install Microsoft Access Database Engine 2010 Redistributable 32-bit:

[en] Start Command Prompt (CMD) "as administrator".

[en] In CMD navigate to the location of your Microsoft Database Engine.

[en] Add the following text:

AccessDatabaseEngine.exe /passive

or in case of 64-bit version:

 AccessDatabaseEngine_X64.exe  /passive

[en] No, you can't have Microsoft Access Database Engine 2010 Redistributable 32-bit and 64-bit installed on the same machine.

[en] To have support for 32-bit and 64-bit Office database drivers, you must install Microsoft Office and Microsoft Access Database Engine 2010 Redistributable of the opposite "bitness".

[en] While it is technically possible to install Office 2013 and Database Engine 2010, the drivers will install with different versions.

[en] When you use 32-bit applications to create labels or Automation configurations, the connection string also encodes the version of the data provider. For example, database drivers for Office 2007 install as version 10.0, for Office 2010 they install as version 12.0, for Office 2013 they install as version 15.0.

[en] If you have Office 2013 32-bit installed, the designers will encode version 15.0 in the connection string. If you install Database Engine 2010 64-bit, the Automation service will seek provider version 15.0, but only 12.0 will be available as a 64-bit provider.