ODBC Error – The specified DSN contains an architecture mismatch
Posted by Chris Luongo in Windows 7
This will fix a common error trying to add or configure a database source in Windows 7.
When attempting to add a new data source on my Windows 7 64-bit machine, I ran into this frustrating error. I needed to create a data source with a Microsoft Access Driver and experienced the following error:
Driver’s ConfigDSN, ConfigDriver, or ConfigTranslator failed
Errors Found:
The specified DSN contains an architecture mismatch between the Driver and Application
This is due to the fact that Microsoft Access is a 32-bit program with 32-bit drivers which is causing the compatibility issues.
Windows 7 64-bit has two different versions of the ODBC Data Source Administrator. The ODBC Data Source Administrator that is reached through the Control Panel is the 64-bit version. What we need to do is use the 32-bit version of the ODBC Data Source Administrator instead.
1 Navigate to c:\Windows\sysWOW64\odbcad32.exe You can use the search feature as there are a lot of files in this folder if needed.
2 Double click to start the executable. You should have no problems adding the 32-bit based driver to your 64-bit machine.
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November 06, 2012 at 12:13 am, rush said:
I don’t seem to be getting your newsletter.
February 05, 2013 at 7:39 am, Randhir Yadav said:
Thanks man. Your post helped.
February 14, 2013 at 8:05 am, Paul said:
Tried 10 other solutions, but this is the only one that actually worked. Thanks for pointing out the fact that I needed to run oadcad32 from c:\Windows\sysWOW64\odbcad32.exe and not from the c:\Windows\system32\odbcad32.exe. Initially seems counter-intuitive, but it worked!
thanks!!
March 23, 2013 at 4:24 pm, Jorge Colorado said:
Great Article Thanks!!!