Article ID: 317867 - Last Review: May 16, 2007 - Revision: 4.3

How to create a Microsoft Access database by using ADOX and Visual Basic .NET

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This article was previously published under Q317867

Caution ADO and ADO MD have not been fully tested in a Microsoft .NET Framework environment. They may cause intermittent issues, especially in service-based applications or in multithreaded applications. The techniques that are discussed in this article should only be used as a temporary measure during migration to ADO.NET. You should only use these techniques after you have conducted complete testing to make sure that there are no compatibility issues. Any issues that are caused by using ADO or ADO MD in this manner are unsupported. For more information, see the following article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

840667 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/840667/ ) You receive unexpected errors when using ADO and ADO MD in a .NET Framework application

SUMMARY

Programmers may have to create databases programmatically, but neither ActiveX Data Objects (ADO) nor ADO.NET provides the means to create Microsoft Access databases. However, you can create Access databases by using the Microsoft Jet OLE DB Provider and Microsoft ADO Ext. 2.7 for DDL and Security (ADOX) with the COM Interop layer.

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Requirements

Microsoft Visual Basic .NET
ADO Ext. 2.7 for DDL and Security (ADOX)

This step-by-step example describes how to use ADOX and Visual Basic .NET to create an Access database on the fly.

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Steps to Build Example

Open a new Visual Basic .NET Console application.
In Solution Explorer, right-click the References node, and then click Add Reference.
In the Add Reference dialog box, click the COM tab, click Microsoft ADO Ext. 2.7 for DDL and Security, click Select to add it to the Selected Components section, and then click OK.
Delete all of the code from the code window for Module1.vb.

Copy the following code and paste it in the code window:

Imports ADOX

Module Module1

    Sub Main()

        Dim cat As Catalog = New Catalog()

        cat.Create("Provider=Microsoft.Jet.OLEDB.4.0;" & _
                    "Data Source=D:\AccessDB\NewMDB.mdb;" & _
                    "Jet OLEDB:Engine Type=5")

        Console.WriteLine("Database Created Successfully")

        cat = Nothing

    End Sub

End Module

Change the path to the new .mdb file as appropriate. Make sure the folder provided in the path exists. Press F5 to build and run the project.

The new .mdb file is created in Access 2000 (Jet 4.0) format. For a different Jet format, see the "References" section of this article.

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Troubleshooting

The Jet Provider requires that the path exists to create the new database. If you try to create a database file in a path that does not exist, you receive an exception. This exception can be caught by using a try...catch structure.

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REFERENCES

For additional information about how to create a table with a primary key through ADOX, click the following article number to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

252908 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/252908/EN-US/ ) HOWTO: Create a Table with Primary Key Through ADOX

For more details about the .NET Framework and the COM Interop layer, visit the following Microsoft Web site:

Exposing COM Components to the .NET Framework

http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/z6tx9dw3(vs.71).aspx (http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/z6tx9dw3(vs.71).aspx)

For more details about Microsoft Jet 4.0 Engine Type values, visit the following Microsoft Web site:

Appendix A: Microsoft OLE DB Provider for Microsoft Jet

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms810660.aspx (http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms810660.aspx)

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