benhenry Posted October 9, 2003 Share Posted October 9, 2003 Win98 First Edition! IE 5.5 sp2 Hi to all! And Howdy to the friends I made here last spring, before damaging weather and a poor harvest took my computer and all my time. I'm back...A while back, I was having trouble with the Windows Update site. I installed a program called BigFix, which is a notifier for available security patches, software updates, etc; similar to what CNet CatchUp used to be.I fire up BigFix once in a while, (even though Windows Update is working fine for me now) just to compare their recommendations with the official Windows Update site.They usually agree completely. But just recently BigFix has recommended: Microsoft has released Microsoft Data Access Components (MDAC) version 2.8. The MDAC 2.8 redistributable installer installs the same Data Access core components as Microsoft Windows 2003 Server. Please note that this release does not include Microsoft Jet, the Microsoft Jet OLE DB Provider, the Desktop Database Drivers ODBC Driver, or the Visual FoxPro ODBC Driver.The Windows Update site didn't recommend this update for my computer... Win98 FE IE5.5 sp2 And I freely admit that I get completely confused every time I try to read a description of MDAC on the microsoft website. Can someone explain to me what this stuff is? And do I need it on a family (not business oriented) personal computer? Thank you...Please take it into account if you reply to these questions that the most involved Office-type software we have is an rtf editor. Printing return address labels is a challenging Sunday afternoon for us... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Peachy Posted October 9, 2003 Share Posted October 9, 2003 Welcome back Ben,Unless you are running an SQL server, use Microsoft Access or write MS Visual Basic or C++ you don't need your MDAC updated. It doesn't hurt if you do, but it's not a critical update. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest LilBambi Posted October 10, 2003 Share Posted October 10, 2003 welcome back benhenry!Wow, sorry to hear about the weather and poor harvest problems, hope all is well now.Glad you are back now and got your issues with WindowsUpdate fixed.Peachy already answered your question, but wanted to say hi and welcome back! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest ThunderRiver Posted October 10, 2003 Share Posted October 10, 2003 Even though you don't run SQL server, MDAC is included in every version of Windows (well, at least Windows 2000 and Xp). Version 2.8 is the newest version available with the most updated bug fixes. Even if you don't use such feature, you are highly encouraged to upgrade. Your older version will always remain vulnerable to Internet attacks if you don't even patch it. On the contrary to Peachy's claim, there are CRITICAL vulnerabilities with MDAC 2.6/2.7. You have choices of taking the chance of being hacked, patching the MDAC, or upgrade to the latest version 2.8On some Windows Xp professional system (such as mine), it has some difficulties patching older versions. For example, one of the patch I tried to apply to MDAC always seems to be not installed, and Windows Update/Automatic Update always download the exact same patch over and over again. Even though it says it is installed, the system would say otherwise immediately after reboot. So the final solution is.... install MDAC 2.8It dose no harm to your system to upgrade. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
benhenry Posted October 10, 2003 Author Share Posted October 10, 2003 Thanks for the welcome back; and the answers!Peachy:I don't run the server, and I will probably not ever write in visual basic, but there are some good free compilers out there for C++, so I might write some code just for personal use of my family. (If I can't do it more easily with vbs or js scripts.) So I guess I will update.ThunderRiver:Thanks for the information on the additional reasons to install... I ran system file checker after the install/upgrade and saved the list of 83 files that were changed if it would help you to figure out why windows Update doesn't see it as already installed... let me know if you want me to post it or send it somewhere.P.S. Peachy... did you get that nickname from my all-time favorite movie based on Kipling's "The Man Who Would Be King"?Fran:I missed ya! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Peachy Posted October 10, 2003 Share Posted October 10, 2003 P.S. Peachy... did you get that nickname from my all-time favorite movie based on Kipling's "The Man Who Would Be King"?Nope! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest ThunderRiver Posted October 11, 2003 Share Posted October 11, 2003 benhenry, it is alright. I am not too worried about it considering I am already using the latest version of MDACI do have Visual Studio.NET 2003, Office 2003, Yukon SQL Beta, and another of other beta programs on that computer, and that's probably why it interfered with Windows Update. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest LilBambi Posted October 11, 2003 Share Posted October 11, 2003 benhenry, Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.