Tag: Database Engine

Installing Access Database Engine 2016 x64 alongside Office x86

In Power BI, you can open XLSX files without any additional drivers, but opening XLSB files requires you to first install the Access Database Engine driver (available for free at https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=54920) or you’ll get an error like this:

We encountered an error while trying to connect. Details: "Excel Workbook: the 'Microsoft.ACE.OLEDB.12.0' provider is not registered on the local machine. The 64-bit bersion of the Access Database Engine 2010 Access Database Engine OLEDB provider may be required to read.
‘Microsoft.ACE.OLEDB.12.0’ provider error message

If you have Microsoft Office installed, you already have this component, but most people use a version of Office that’s x86 – since Power BI is x64, you’ll need the x64 version of the driver as well. However, if you try to install it with Office x86 on your computer, you’ll get this error and you’ll be stuch:

Microsoft Access database engine 2016 x64 Installation Error screenshot - "You cannot install the 64-bit version of Microsoft Access Database Engine 2016 because you current have 32-bit Office products installed. If you want to install 64-bit Microsoft Access Database Engine 2016, you will first need to remove the 32-bit installation of Office products. After uninstalling the following product(s), rerun setup in order to install 64-bit version of Micorsoft Access Database Engine 2016: Office 16 Click-to-Run Extensibility Component"
Microsoft Access database engine 2016 x64 Installation Error screenshot

There’s a way to install both! To avoid this error and install the x64 database engine without removing Office x86, you need to download the installation for the Access Database Engine x64 and run the installation with a command line switch:

AccessDatabaseEngine_X64.exe /quiet
Command to install Access database engine using the "/quiet" switch to run to installation without an error

Once you run this command, you’ll get a black command window for a few seconds, and then it will close once it’s done. To confirm that it’s installed successfully, you can either check for “Microsoft Access database engine 2016” in your Windows “Programs and Features” window, or you can just launch Power BI and attempt to import an XLSB file!

I haven’t noticed any ill effects to doing this, but if you do have issues, comment below.

Receiving (or stopping!) SQL Server maintenance plan summary emails

When you use the Maintenance Plan wizard in SQL Management Studio to set up a new plan, you have the option to have the SQL Agent send you a plan execution summary email:

It’s a pretty handy email – not just a success/failure on the SQL Agent job, but details about the actual maintenance plan steps and which ones ran and for how long. The problem we ran into was how to actually turn this email off once it was initially enabled in the wizard! It’s not anywhere in the SQL Agent job or in the properties of the maintenance plan, or even anywhere obvious in the maintenance plan designer. It’s hidden in a tiny button on the toolbar in the designer called “Reporting and Logging”:

Clicking there gets you some logging options, including sending a summary email to an operator:

From there, you can change the operator or stop the email summary (or start it, if that’s what you’re looking for).