Component Checker: Diagnose problems and reconfigure MDAC installations

This article describes the functionality of the Microsoft Component Checker (ComCheck) tool. The ComCheck tool can help you to diagnose installation issues with Microsoft Data Access Components (MDAC).

MDAC is included with Microsoft SQL Server, Microsoft Visual Studio, Microsoft Office, Microsoft Back Office, and other Microsoft products. Additionally, you can redistribute the MDAC stack through the MDAC_TYP.exe file. To download MDAC_TYP.exe, visit the following Microsoft Web site: Note Microsoft recommends that you first test your application with MDAC 2.8 in a test environment to make sure that you are aware of any compatibility issues before you decide to use or to upgrade to MDAC 2.8

With so many recent MDAC releases, applications have experienced version incompatibility issues under certain circumstances. This is dependent on the environment where MDAC was installed. In most scenarios, applications that experience problems with MDAC are a result of mismatched components

Note Removing or replacing some of the MDAC components from the operating system can cause data loss and unpredictable results. MDAC components are system components; they are installed as part of the operating system on computers that are running Windows Millennium Edition, Windows 2000, and later versions of Windows. Therefore, you cannot manually modify or remove MDAC from these operating systems.

To download Component Checker, visit the following Microsoft Web site: Component Checker comes as a self-extracting executable file (cc_pkg.exe) that extracts to a ComCheck folder and includes its own Help file. After you extract the files to a directory, click the cc.exe icon to run Component Checker. The application prompts you with a dialog box that reads as follows:

• Perform an analysis of your machine and automatically determine the release version.
• Perform an analysis against a selected version.
• Scan the machine. Don't perform an analysis.

The first selection is the most common selection. The analysis helps you to determine which version of MDAC is installed on the computer. Keep in mind that Component Checker may not be able to determine an exact version because the computer may be in a state that has multiple overlapping versions. After you select this option, you are prompted with a dialog box that provides information about all the MDAC versions that were matched on your computer. Toward the bottom of this dialog box, you see the following question:

�Would you like to rerun the query for a specific product release?"

If you answer yes, this takes you back to the main dialog box with the three options that are mentioned earlier. Typically, you select the second option that specifies the MDAC version that was matched on your computer (the version that you select when running the first option).

When you run the second option to select a specific MDAC version, you receive an analysis that is run against this specific version with the following information:

• File details
• COM details
• Registry details

After the analysis is run for the selected MDAC version, each of these entries on the left pane contains one of the following subentries:

• Match
• Mismatch
• Not Found

The Match subentry includes all details about all MDAC components and registry entries that are matched to the selected MDAC version.

The Mismatch subentry includes entries for components and registry entries that exist in the current selected MDAC version, but where a mismatch was found. Typically, these are the components that you must investigate when you suspect that there are any MDAC installation or configuration issues.

The Not Found subentry refers to components or registry keys that are not found (do not exist) in the selected MDAC version. Therefore, it cannot compare these components or registry keys to verify if there is a match or a mismatch. Typically, these can be older components that may have been discontinued in later MDAC versions or may be newer versions that did not exist in older MDAC versions.

The ComCheck.chm Help file in the \ComCheck folder provides more detailed information about the user interface and other functions.

To save an analysis for the MDAC components that are installed on your computer, click Save on the File menu. This saves the output as an XML file in any location that you specify on your computer.

For additional information about advanced MDAC troubleshooting, click the following article number to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base: