Help and Support
 

powered byLive Search

How to create an Access database by using ADOX and Visual C# .NET

View products that this article applies to.
Article ID:317881
Last Review:May 16, 2007
Revision:4.2
This article was previously published under Q317881
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
On This Page

SUMMARY

Programmers often need to create databases programmatically. Although neither ActiveX Data Objects (ADO) nor ADO.NET provide the means to create Microsoft Access databases automatically, you can use the Microsoft Jet OLE DB Provider and Microsoft ADO Ext. 2.7 for DDL and Security (ADOX) through the COM Interop layer to create databases manually.

Back to the top

Requirements

•Microsoft Visual C# .NET
•Microsoft ADO Ext. 2.7 for DDL and Security (ADOX)
This step-by-step article describes how to use ADOX and Visual C# .NET to create an Access database manually.


Back to the top

Build an Access Database

1.Open a new Visual C# .NET console application.
2.In Solution Explorer, right-click the References node and select Add Reference.
3.On the COM tab, select Microsoft ADO Ext. 2.7 for DDL and Security, click Select to add it to the Selected Components, and then click OK.
4.Delete all of the code from the code window for Class1.cs.
5.Paste the following code into the code window:
using System;
using ADOX;

namespace ConsoleApplication1
{
	class Class1
	{
		[STAThread]
		static void Main(string[] args)
		{
			ADOX.CatalogClass cat = new ADOX.CatalogClass();

			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 = null;

		}
	}
}
6.Change the path to the new .mdb file as appropriate, and then press F5 to build and run the project.

The new .mdb file will be created in Access 2000 (Jet 4.0) format. For more information about different Jet formats, see the "References" section of this article.

Back to the top

Pitfalls

To create the new database, the Jet Provider requires the path to exist. If you try to create a database file in a directory that does not exist, you will receivean exception error. You can catch this exception by using a Try...Catch structure.

Back to the top

REFERENCES

REFERENCES


For more information about the .NET Framework and the COM Interop layer, visit the following MSDN 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 information about Microsoft Jet 4.0 Engine Type values, visit the following MSDN Web site:
Appendix C: Microsoft Jet 4.0 OLE DB Provider-Defined Property Values http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/dndao/html/daotoadoupdate_topic15.asp (http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/dndao/html/daotoadoupdate_topic15.asp)

Back to the top

APPLIES TO
•Microsoft ADO.NET 1.0
•Microsoft ADO.NET 1.1
•Microsoft Visual C# .NET 2002 Standard Edition
•Microsoft Visual C# .NET 2003 Standard Edition

Back to the top

Keywords: 
kbhowto KB317881

Back to the top

Article Translations

 

Related Support Centers

Other Support Options

  • Need More Help?
    Contact a Support professional by Email, Online or Phone.
  • Customer Service
    For non-technical assistance with product purchases, subscriptions, online services, events, training courses, corporate sales, piracy issues, and more.
  • Newsgroups
    Pose a question to other users. Discussion groups and Forums about specific Microsoft products, technologies, and services.