Installing Access Database Engine with the /passive key

Question

Hello, all

Some of our client's software requires the 32-bit version Microsoft Office 2016, whereas our software depends upon a 64-bit ACE OLEDB driver in reading Excel files, and we cannot recompile it for 32-bit because our product is a plugin for a 64-bit system. On the other hand, installation of the 64-bit ACE OLEDB driver fails with the following error:

You cannot install the 64-bit version of Microsoft Access Database Engine 2016 because you currenly 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 the setup in order to install 64-bit version of Microsoft Access Database Engine 2016:

Microsoft Office Standard 2016.

I have seen advice, such as Yoyo Jiang gives here, to run the ACE installer with the /passive option. It works in practice, but our client fears that overriding the error above may violate the license agreement, rescind their right for support from Microsoft, and make the configuration unreliable and prone to failures. May we tell the client to use the /passive option with confidence or are their worries justified so that we have to seek an alternative solution?

Also, I have not been able to find the official documentation for this option except in the installer's very concise build-in help invoked by /? . Is there a more detailed description available separately from the distribution?

Edit: see also a related question about installing the 64-bit ACE from old Office 2010.

Answer 1

Yes, that is what I would do.

Answer 2

If you are hoping for a statement from MSFT that this is guaranteed to work and you can send them the bill if you find out it's not, that will not be forthcoming.

In today's software world (at least wrt Office) you do what you can and hope for the best. Office ships with known bugs, and every update cycle some are fixed and others are added. It's the reality we live in.

That said, 32-bit and 64-bit software share very little and thus affect each other very little. Different system folders, different registry hives. I know what I would do if I was in your client's position.

Answer 3

Thank you, Tom. No, I did not expect such a formal statement here in the forum and was only hoping for an educated advice from an expert. I am aware that swarms of bugs are fixed and introduced with every release, and so is our client. My question, however, is specifically about the potential danger of overriding the test and error message quoted above by means of the /passive option. Is it worth implementing alternative methods for reading Excel files for the sole purpose of not having to suppress the error in the interactive installer? I really wish you would make your last sentence less ambiguous (for our client's benefit).

My other question remains about the apparent contradiction between the interactive and command-line installer modes: why does the one check for 32-bit Office and the other does not? If this test is mandatory for stable work I should expect it to be present in both modes, and if it is not, then I see no reason for performing it in the interactive mode only, and not letting the user to bypass it...

Answer 4

Palcouck,

thank you for the reply. It that takes care of the support concern, but what about my other question about reliability? Microsoft have implemented that test and error message in interactive installation mode, and—at the same time—have provided a way to override it in non-interactive mode. This error message made the client's systems administrator chary of ignoring it via the /passive option. But are there any real risks in using it?

Answer 5

Tech Support for lifetime licence versions usually is for 12 months from first installation, so i would suspect the your clients free support for 2016 will already have ended