HOW TO: Use Visual FoxPro DBC Files in Microsoft Access 2000

You can use data from a Microsoft Visual FoxPro database in Microsoft Access 2000 if you have added a Visual FoxPro ODBC data source as a User Data Source in the ODBC Data Source Administrator. This article describes how to do so.

The latest Microsoft Visual FoxPro ODBC driver is in the Microsoft Data Access Components (MDAC), which can be downloaded from the following Microsoft Web site: This article is divided into two parts: the first part explains how to set up the data source for Visual FoxPro, and the second part explains how to link tables in Visual FoxPro.

Creating the Data Source in Control Panel

1. Click Start, point to Settings, and then click Control Panel.
2. In Control Panel, double-click the ODBC Data Sources (32bit) icon.
3. In the ODBC Data Source Administrator box, click the User DSN tab, and then click Add.
4. In the Create New Data Source dialog box, select the Microsoft Visual FoxPro driver, and then click Finish.
5. In the ODBC Visual FoxPro Setup dialog box, in the Data Source Name box, type a name for your data source.
6. In the Description box, type a description. For the Database type option, select Visual FoxPro database (DBC). In the Path box, type the path to your Visual FoxPro database or click Browse to locate the file. Click OK.
   
   The data source is created.

Linking a Visual FoxPro Table

To link a Visual FoxPro table from a Microsoft Access database, follow these steps:

1. Open the sample database Northwind.mdb.
2. On the File menu, point to Get External Data, and then click Link Tables.
3. In the Link box, in the Files Of Type list box, select ODBC Databases().
4. In the Select Data Source box, on the File Data Source tab, select Visual FoxPro.
5. In the Configure Connection box, select Visual FoxPro database (.DBC), type or select the path to the file, and then click OK.
   
   The link to the table is created.