We use an older proprietry application that uses Paradox underneath. I've used MS Access for some time now for a lot of reporting that was not possible via the application itself - other than interlocking issues, I've never had any major problems.

I've got a (hopefully one-off) need to modify some of the data. Some of this would be viable via the application, but a heap of manual work, and other changes are simply not possible via the application). I'm pretty comfortable with the database structure, so was going to tackle this via ODBC with Access, Perl/DBI or something similar. This is where I've hit a couple of problems with update access.

I assume the BDE is installed as part of the application (I have a BDE Administrator on the machine, but don't pretend to understand all the intricacies of Paradox), and are just using the standard XP Paradox ODBC driver. From what I have gleaned, this should support update access in concert with the BDE, but it does sound a tad flakey.

What I am getting is update access to some tables, but not to others (this is via Access, but have also seen this with Perl/DBI). I can't see any differences in how the Paradox tables are linked - it appears totally arbitrary which ones will support updates.

Any clues? Could this be related to the Microsoft Paradox driver (I'm tempted to try the DataDirect driver, but that is just a stab in the dark)?

In terms of Paradox version, the BDE Administrator on the machine is V5.01, so I assume its V5.

Regards

Andrew

Microsoft stopped updating it's paradox odbc driver which means if any of the files use strict referential integrity it is likely that the microsoft odbc driver will be insufficient to provide update access.