ODBC Connection on 64x

[Dave]

I have an app that uses an ODBC connection to foxpro. On a Vista 64x machine
I open the ODBC and only see connections for SQL. What happened to all the
other ODBC connections?

 

[Jeroen Mostert]

I have an app that uses an ODBC connection to foxpro. On a Vista 64x machine
I open the ODBC and only see connections for SQL. What happened to all the
other ODBC connections?

First of all, 64-bit Windows has two ODBC configurations: one for 32-bit
applications and one for 64-bit applications. They cannot share connections,
so each is independently configured. To configure 32-bit connections, run
%WINDIR%\SysWOW64\odbcad32.exe. For 64-bit, it's %WINDIR%\System32\odbcad32.exe.

Furthermore, some drivers are simply not available as 64-bit, and the FoxPro
driver is one of them. 64-bit applications won't be able to connect. For
older versions of FoxPro, you can try connecting through the OLE DB driver,
but otherwise you must stick to 32-bit applications.

 

[Dave]

Do you have those two backwards? it seems to make more sense to have 64bit in
%WINDIR%\SysWOW64\odbcad32.exe. Though if not it is what it is.

 

[Dave]

No you are right, just tried it.

Do you have those two backwards? it seems to make more sense to have 64bit in
%WINDIR%\SysWOW64\odbcad32.exe. Though if not it is what it is.

 

[Jeroen Mostert]

Do you have those two backwards? it seems to make more sense to have 64bit in
%WINDIR%\SysWOW64\odbcad32.exe. Though if not it is what it is.

The reason for this is, as always, backwards compatibility. Many
badly-written programs have hardcoded paths to \System32. Microsoft wanted
to make the transition to 64-bit as painless as possible, so to ensure those
programs wouldn't need to be rewritten moving to 64-bit all the 64-bit
executables remained in \System32 (rather than moving to \System64, which
would have been a tad more logical).

When a 32-bit application is running, it will see \SysWOW64 as \System32.
The "WOW" stands for "(32-bit) Windows On (64-bit) Windows". Although the
solution is exceedingly ugly, it does work, with a minimum of fuss.
Retaining compatibility has traditionally been a bigger priority for
Microsoft than ensuring the systems are elegant.