How to determine Jet database Engine Type programmatically

calendar_today Asked May 24, 2010
thumb_up 4 upvotes
history Updated April 16, 2026

Question posted 2010 · +10 upvotes

I have a program which needs to upgrade any Access (Jet) database it opens to JET Version4.x if it isn’t already that version. (This enables use of SQL-92 syntax features)

Upgrading is (relatively) easy. A call to the JRO.JetEngine object’s CompactDatabase method (as described here) should do the trick, but before I do this I need to determine whether an upgrade is required. How do I determine the Jet OLEDB:Engine Type of an existing database? Can this be determined from an open OleDBConnection?

Note:

  1. I’m talking about database versions, not Jet library versions.
  2. C# or .Net solution greatly appreciated.
  3. This is an application which uses the Jet engine, NOT an Access application.

Accepted answer +4 upvotes

You’ll have to set a reference to ADO and then you can get the property.

From inside of Access

Dim cnn As ADODB.Connection
Set cnn = CurrentProject.Connection

From outside of Access

Dim cnn As New ADODB.Connection
cnn.Open Provider=Microsoft.Jet.OLEDB.4.0;Data Source=Contact.mdb

And finally

Debug.Print cnn.Properties("Jet OLEDB:Engine Type").Value

This .Value will return 1 to 5. If it is 5, it is already in Jet4x, otherwise it is an earlier version.

Here’s another example of the upgrade technique you’re looking at as well: Convert MDB database to another format (JET, access version)

3 code variants in this answer

  • Variant 1 — 2 lines, starts with Dim cnn As ADODB.Connection
  • Variant 2 — 2 lines, starts with Dim cnn As New ADODB.Connection
  • Variant 3 — 1 lines, starts with Debug.Print cnn.Properties("Jet OLEDB:Engine Type").Value

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