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You may receive an error message when you open a DQY file in Excel

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This article was previously published under Q277587

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Symptoms

When you open a Microsoft Query file (.dqy) in Microsoft Excel, you may receive one of the following error messages:
[Microsoft][ODBC Microsoft Access Driver] The SELECT statement includes a reserved word or an argument name that is misspelled or missing, or the punctuation is incorrect.
File could not be opened. It is either damaged or the file format is not valid. Try opening it in the application that created it and saving to a new file.
This error message is followed by the following error message:
Unable to open or read this connection file. Either the file has been damaged or the file format is not valid.

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Cause

This behavior can occur if the SELECT statement in the .dqy file contains the tab or carriage-return characters.

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Workaround

To work around this issue, remove all tab and carriage-return characters from the SELECT statement in the Microsoft Query file. To do this, follow these steps:
  1. Make a backup copy of your .dqy file.
  2. Open the .dqy file in Notepad.
  3. Delete all tab and carriage-return characters from the SELECT statement lines of the file.

    Note You may find tab and carriage-return characters elsewhere in in the file. Those characters must remain intact.
  4. On the File menu, click Save, and then exit Notepad.

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Status

Microsoft has confirmed that this is a problem in the Microsoft products that are listed in the "Applies to" section.

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More information

When you create a .dqy file by using Microsoft Query, the SELECT statement does not contain any additional non-alphanumeric characters other than spaces, periods, semicolons, apostrophes, or quotation marks.

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Keywords: KB277587, kbpending, kberrmsg, kbbug, kbexpertisebeginner, kbtshoot, kbprb

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Article Info
Article ID : 277587
Revision : 4
Created on : 2/2/2007
Published on : 2/2/2007
Exists online : False
Views : 421