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MDAC and Windows 7

Anonymous
2010-07-12T14:32:43+00:00

A setup program which worked under Windows XP is giving me this error under Windows 7 (64 bit):  "This program requires MDAC 2.5 or greater to install.  MDAC 2.6 is required for SQL 2000 compatibility.... Please re-run setup when a newer version of MDAC has been installed."

I understand that a Windows 7 includes the newest MDAC, and so I should not install it separately.  So then, how do I get past the above error?

FYI, the program is Service Pack 5 for MS Visual Studio 6.0.  Please don't tell me it's obsolete: I know that already.  All that I want to do is keep working with what I had before my Windows XP machine died and was replaced with a new Windows 7 system.

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  1. Anonymous
    2011-10-17T19:47:20+00:00

    If you are trying to install SP5 you will run into a MDAC compatibility check that you cannot get past through the installer. I saw this post from guideX at http://social.msdn.microsoft.com/forums/en-US/windowsgeneraldevelopmentissues/thread/cd740951-dd2c-46eb-856f-6e653a2e3d07/, but wanted to save it here for future reference as well.

    Here are the steps that I followed to get SP5 installed:

    Tutorial: How to install Visual Studio 6 With Service Pack 5 on Windows 7 and avoid MDAC 2.5 compatibility check.

    1. Visual Studio 6.0
    2. Service Pack 5
    • Before running Service pack 5 setup, you must make modifications to the file 'sp598ent.stf' here's how to do that (note some of the spaces have been truncated, try to not remove the extra space in the stf file when modifying it. If you do, this will not work at all, and you'll get a "Setup Damaged" error)...

    Step 1) Copy all of the Service Pack 5 files to a temporary directory, say - C:\ServicePack5Dir\

    Step 2) Open C:\ServicePack5Dir\sp598ent.stf with 'Notepad.exe'

    Step 3) Replace the following line

    13 Group 28 36 38 29 30 32 26 27 14 25 16 17 20 18 19 15 39 21 22 24 23 43

    -with-

    13 Group 28 38 29 30 32 26 27 14 25 16 17 20 18 19 15 39 21 22 24 23 43

    Step 4) Delete the following lines leaving only a carriage return where it was

    36 Depend "27 ? : 37"

    37 IsWin95 CustomAction "sp598ent.dll,CheckForMDAC"

    Step 5) Save and close C:\ServicePack5Dir\sp598ent.stf

    Step 6) Run 'setupsp5.exe' as an administrator.

    • Service Pack 5 Setup should work fine now.

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  1. Anonymous
    2010-08-03T14:22:15+00:00

    Here's what I did:  I installed MS Visual Studio 6 on an XP machine, and installed its Service Pack 5 update there.  Then I manually copied the new compiler file cl.exe from that machine to overwrite the one on my Windows 7 machine.  That seemed to accomplish the update, getting around the MDAC complaint.

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  1. Anonymous
    2015-03-17T16:40:51+00:00

    I had to remove 32 from the line

    13    Group 28 32 34 29 30 26 27 14 25 17 15 35 21 22

    with the example given above the number which was deleted is 36.

    The lines I had to delete read

    32    Depend "27 ?  : 33

    33  IsWin95  CustomAction "sp598vbo.dll,CheckForMDAC"

    Also, the files did not match only the sp598xxx,

    the file I had to edit was named sp598vbo.stf, possibly due to later versions.

    I hope this helps, have a great day!

    2 people found this answer helpful.
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  2. Anonymous
    2010-07-14T15:25:27+00:00

    Richard, thanks for your thoughts.  However, my question was more about MDAC than about VS6.  I have other 32-bit apps using MDAC that run quite happily under Win 7.  The problem seems to be with how the VS6 SP5 installer interprets the response to its query about MDAC version.

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  3. Anonymous
    2010-07-12T22:00:10+00:00

    You're probably out of luck.  I'm guessing this is a conflict between 64-bit MDAC components in Windows 7 and 32-bit MDAC components under Visual Studio 6.  Personally I've never even considered trying to get VS6 running under Windows 7 - I run it in a Virtual XP machine under 32 bit Windows and have no problems there.  You might want to consider the same.

    "Rich Pasco" wrote in message news:*** Email address is removed for privacy ***...

    A setup program which worked under Windows XP is giving me this error under Windows 7 (64 bit):  "This program requires MDAC 2.5 or greater to install.  MDAC 2.6 is required for SQL 2000 compatibility.... Please re-run setup when a newer version of MDAC has been installed."

    I understand that a Windows 7 includes the newest MDAC, and so I should not install it separately.  So then, how do I get past the above error?

    FYI, the program is Service Pack 5 for MS Visual Studio 6.0.  Please don't tell me it's obsolete: I know that already.  All that I want to do is keep working with what I had before my Windows XP machine died and was replaced with a new Windows 7 system.

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