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“UDL Test” on a 64 bit machine

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“UDL Test” on a 64 bit machine

Let’s say you’ve started playing with UDL files on your "32 bit" machine and this tiny little UDL files helped you to identify connectivity issues or you’ve easily obtained the OLE DB connection strings for your applications. So far so good. But one day, you followed the same procedure on a 64 bit machine and couldn’t see the OLE DB Providers though you’re sure that it’s been installed. There must be something wrong then ?

The reason behind for this is simple. When you double clicked on a UDL file on a 64 bit machine, it’ll enumerate only the 64 bit OLE DB Providers and most probably you’ve installed a 32 bit OLE DB Provider.

So then, there should be a way of making UDL Test using the 32 bit OLE DB Providers on a 64 bit machine.

Actually when you’ve created a UDL file on a 64 bit machine and double clicked on it,

"C:\Program Files\Common Files\System\Ole DB\oledb32.dll",OpenDSLFile C:\test.udl

command will be called through C:\windows\system32\rundll32.exe

Both binaries (oledb32.dll and rundll32.exe) used here are 64 bit and 64 bit oledb32.dll does not deal with 32 bit OLE DB Providers.

Since we already have 32 bit versions of those oledb32.dll and rundll32.exe in other folders on our 64 bit machines, we need to use them. Therefore, instead of double clicking on the UDL file, we’ll need to execute the command below from a command line or Start/Run :

C:\Windows\syswow64\rundll32.exe "C:\Program Files (x86)\Common Files\System\Ole DB\oledb32.dll",OpenDSLFile C:\test.udl

Et voila :) There you have your 32 bit OLE DB Providers.

Comments

  • Anonymous
    November 03, 2008
    The comment has been removed

  • Anonymous
    July 29, 2011
    thanks for writing this. Saved me a lot of frustration.

  • Anonymous
    September 05, 2011
    Glad that it helped you Tanner.

  • Anonymous
    April 16, 2012
    Thanks, Its working great! How to make it work for Excel file

  • Anonymous
    May 15, 2013
    This was really helpful. Unfortunately I read too late to save myself from frustration.

  • Anonymous
    September 11, 2013
    Is there a way to run the command from a batch file and not have it open the Data Link Properties window? Thanks.

  • Anonymous
    November 12, 2015
    this was really help me,Solve my problems,thanks for writing this

  • Anonymous
    November 17, 2016
    The following seems to be a slightly easier/short way of (at least) seeing the 32 bit providers (- adding the " (x86)" suffix to the "Program Files"):RunDll32 "C:\Program Files (x86)\Common Files\System\Ole DB\oledb32.dll",OpenDSLFile C:\Test.udl