PRB: Jet 3.51 OLE DB Provider Is Not Installed With MDAC 2.1 or Later

The "3706: ADO could not find the specified provider" error appears when you try to connect to an Access database through the Jet 3.51 OLE DB provider.

MDAC 2.0 installs version 3.51 of the Jet OLE DB provider. MDAC versions 2.1 through 2.5 install version 4.0 of the Jet OLE DB provider but does not install version 3.51. MDAC 2.1 does not remove or overwrite version 3.51 of the Jet OLE DB provider if it was previously installed.

The Jet OLE DB provider requires the version number of the provider in order to connect to an Access database.

As a result, if your application specifies version 3.51 of the Jet OLE DB provider in the connection string and you install ADO by redistributing MDAC 2.1, you will be unable to connect to your Access database.

The simplest workarounds are as follows:

• Redistribute MDAC 2.0 components prior to or instead of MDAC 2.1 components.
  
  -or-
• Change the connection strings in your application to use version 4.0 of the Jet OLE DB provider.

For additional information, click the article number below to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base: