Auto FE Updater

Obsolete Error Messages

 Update to the latest version and you shouldn't be getting any more of these messages.  Or they have been rewritten to be clearer.  (I hope.  Writing easy to understand error messages and documentation is among my many weaknesses.)

The MDW account name and password in the INI file weren't valid for opening the MDB to determine the version of the MDB.
You can re-enter the MDWPassword entry in the INI file and replace '(Password is encrypted)' with the password. This utility will automatically update the MDWPasswordEncrypted entry with the new encrypted password."

This was due to a typo on my part in the decryption code and typically showed up in a mixed environment of Windows 2000 and Windows XP workstations.  The latest version fixes this problem. My apologies for taking so long to notice the typo.

Bad file name or number

This message should not be appearing any more.  I'm now doing much more verification to ensure files mentioned in the INI file exist before attempting to copy or access them.  If you are using a recent version and are still getting this message please email me.

This means the program can't find a file or directory.  This can be the ini file location specified in the shortcut or any of the other lines.   One common problem is to place the FE MDE name on the Server line in the INI file.  The Server line should just be a directory.

Dr. Watson error message An application error has occurred and an application error log is being generated. StartMDMB.exe  Exception access violation (0xc0000005). Address 0x6681ed  (Your numbers may vary.)

You are running a very old version.  Newer versions have much better error checking. The file specified in the MainApp line in the INI file is not in the server directory and thus is not being copied down to the workstation.

The following error occurred while attempting to determine the
Access/Jet version of the file '\\smskpapp01\MisIssuesDB\Source\ITS.MDE'
(while attempting to use DAO Version 3.6)

3050 Could not lock file. Database or network share may be read only.

Download a newer version of the Auto FE Updater utility.  This problem is due to user not having sufficient permissions on the MDB file being downloaded for the method I was using to determine the MDB version.  This was fixed in V1.65.

Null command line prompt sent to utility. It should be in the following format:
StartMDB.exe /cmd /inifile:"c:\test\ini\startmdb.ini"

You are running an old version of the utility.  Please upgrade to the latest version as the error message is much friendlier.

A required .DLL file, MSVBVM60.DLL, was not found.

Download VB 6.0 SP6 from Microsoft at VBRun60sp6.exe installs Visual Basic 6.0 SP6 run-time files. The original version is at VBRun60.exe installs Visual Basic 6.0 run-time files.

The drive or network connection that the shortcut " refers to is unavailable. Make sure that the disk is properly inserted or the network resource is available, and then try again.  in Windows NT 4.0. 

Update to a newer version.  When you look at the target of the shortcut created it looks like 'C:\"\<server name>\<share name>\StartMDB.exe"'.  This was fixed in V1.65.

Technical details:  NT 4.0 SP 6 has a bug where, if you have spaces in the UNC path and name, which require double quotes around the path and StartMDB.exe, and you are creating a shortcut, it inserts a C: in the UNC path and name.  As in C:\"\<ServerName>\  when it should be \\ServerName.  Wierd.  This doesn't happen in Windows 2000 or newer.  The work around is for you, the developer, to create the shortcut on the server and then copy down the correct shortcut.  If you are running NT 4.0 yourself then you must manually fix the shortcut yourself once it's been created.

3033 Access denied

The MDB/MDE is secured and requires an Access user account, password and security workgroup file in order for the utility to determine the version of Access.  

This message has now been replaced with a much more detailed message in version 1.66.   You can also now set the MDWFile, MDWAccount and MDBPassword entries to allow the Auto FE Updater utility to access the secured MDB/MDE to determine the Access version of the file.