How to connect to MS Access DB using Java + ODBC on Windows 7

Question

I googleed this question a lot and the answers are inconsistent and none helped. So I thought I could get a little more help here. I need to code a little app in Java for my next class which gets data from a MS Access database(mdb) using ODBC. My OS is Windows 7 Ultimate 64bits. I know there is a odbcad32 in SysWOW64 folder. I managed to set up a DSN there. But I can't connect. The app throws a SQL Exception. Tried two alternatives for DriverManager.getConnection():

jdbc:odbc:Driver={Microsoft Access Driver (*.mdb)};DBH=E:/DB.mdb

and

jdbc:odbc:DSN_NAME

The driver is:

sun.jdbc.odbc.JdbcOdbcDriver

[EDIT]

The connection code is basically the following:

    try {
        Class.forName(driver);
        db = DriverManager.getConnection(url);
    }
    catch(SQLException e) {
        System.out.println("SQL error!");
    }
    catch(ClassNotFoundException e) {
        System.out.println("Class not found!");
    }

[/EDIT]

And doesn't work. I don't know how to fix the problem because I don't know where the problem lies! If is the ODBC driver or Java or whatever.

It's too bothersome to use a virtual WinXP to do the job. This can't go on forever.

[EDIT2]

Just to be sure: it does work on WinXP, as implicited. :}

[/EDIT2]

I would appreciate a lot any help I could get here. :DDDDD

Answer 1

So you since you already have setup ODBC, you might want to also make sure you are using the same 64 bit odbc driver (if you created your odbc connection under %WINDIR%\System32\odbcad32.exe). I know for a fact that there is no 64 bit driver for access 2007 so in my case, I had to create a 32 bit odbc connection(%WINDIR%\SysWOW64\odbcad32.exe), downgrade my java version to 32 bits and use the 32 bit driver to make it to work.

Hope this helps!