Microsoft Access Database Engine supporting issue

Question

Microsoft Access Database Engine supporting issue

Kota, Putal Reddy 0

Hi Folks,

After the Microsoft 365 Apps Enterprise (EN) update on 16 December 2025, one of the applications on my machine—Monogram.CS—started experiencing issues due to a dependency on Microsoft 365 Apps Enterprise.

Following the update, launching the app resulted in the error:

System.Data.OleDb.OleDbException (0x80004005): Operation is not supported for this type of object.

During my investigation, I found that the application requires Microsoft Access Database Engine 2016. Installing it allowed the app to launch successfully, but that version is no longer supported by Microsoft.

I then installed Microsoft Access Database Components 2.8, but when I attempted to open the app again, I received another error indicating:

ACE.OLEDB.12.0 is not registered.

The Monogram.CS application uses ACE.OLEDB 12 to access .mdb and .accdb files. I attempted to update it to ACE.OLEDB 16, but I encountered the same issue.

Since Monogram.CS relies on Microsoft Access Database Engine 2016—which is now unsupported—what is the recommended alternative engine that can be installed to enable access to .mdb or .accdb files via ACE.OLEDB?

Thank you,

[Moderator note: personal info removed]

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3 answers

Your answer

Answer 1

To resolve the issue with the Monogram.CS application relying on the Microsoft Access Database Engine, you should consider the following recommendations:

Upgrade to Office LTSC 2021 (Volume License): If you are using Office 2016/2019 Pro Plus C2R (Volume License), upgrading to Office LTSC 2021 can help as it does not require additional components to access the OLEDB interfaces.
Install Microsoft Access Runtime: If you do not have any Office installation, you can install the Microsoft 365 Access Runtime. This runtime version provides the necessary components to work with Access databases without needing the full version of Access.
Ensure Compatibility: Make sure that the version of the Access Database Engine you are using is compatible with your Office installation. The Microsoft Access Database Engine 2016 is not recommended alongside Microsoft 365 Apps due to potential conflicts, so it is advisable to use the runtime or the latest version that aligns with your Office version.
Check for ACE.OLEDB Registration: If you encounter the error stating that ACE.OLEDB.12.0 is not registered, ensure that the correct version of the Access Database Engine is installed and registered properly in the Windows Registry. You may need to use the 64-bit or 32-bit version depending on your application's architecture.

By following these steps, you should be able to resolve the issues with accessing .mdb and .accdb files through ACE.OLEDB in your application.

References:

Answer 2

Please note that Q&A forum is a public platform, and moderators will modify the question to hide personal information in the description. Kindly ensure that you hide any personal or organizational information the next time you post an error or other details to protect personal data.

Dear Kota, Putal Reddy

Thank you for reaching out to the Microsoft Q&A forum.

First, I recommend reviewing the AI-generated response, particularly options 2 and 4, as they provide helpful insights that align closely with my own findings after further research. I’d like to add a few important clarifications:

Before installing the Microsoft 365 Access Runtime, you should first determine whether Monogram.CS is a 32-bit (x86) or 64-bit (x64) application. If it’s a 32-bit app, you must install the 32-bit version of the Access Runtime. If it’s 64-bit, use the 64-bit version accordingly. A mismatch in architecture between the application and the runtime will result in errors such as “ACE.OLEDB.x.0 provider is not registered.”

If you already have Microsoft 365 Apps for Enterprise (Click-to-Run) installed, the Access Runtime installer may be blocked due to architecture conflicts. Some users have attempted to bypass this by running the installer as an Administrator using the /quiet or /passive switch, like this: accessruntime_en-us_x64.exe /quiet(Replace with accessruntime_en-us_x86.exe if you need the 32-bit version)

However, please note that this method does not guarantee success if there is a bitness conflict between Office and the Runtime. Microsoft does not support side-by-side installations of Office components with different architectures (e.g., 64-bit Office and 32-bit Runtime).

If Monogram.CS is hardcoded to use the ACE.OLEDB.12.0 provider (from Access 2007), it is not strictly necessary to switch to ACE.OLEDB.16.0. The Microsoft 365 Access Runtime still supports ACE.OLEDB.12.0 for backward compatibility. However, if the 12.0 provider is not properly registered or accessible, switching to 16.0 may help, provided that the 16.0 provider is installed and correctly registered.

I hope this information is helpful. If you have any further questions, feel free to reach out.

Note: Please follow the steps in our documentation to enable e-mail notifications if you want to receive the related email notification for this thread.

Anonymous

2026-02-03T15:15:03.1966667+00:00

Dear Kota, Putal Reddy

just checking in to see how things are going with this issue. Have you had a chance to review the replies provided? Any update from your side would be greatly appreciated.

You may also want to take a look at Karl’s response, he’s highly experienced in this area and has helped many users with similar Access‑related issues.

Answer 3

Karl Donaubauer 3,501 MVP

Hi,

Operation is not supported for this type of object.

This message is typical for a security change concerning references to external databases that Microsoft did in December. You could check out our documenting blog articleand the measures/workarounds there to find out, if that's the case here.

Servus
Karl

Access Forever News DevCon
Access-Entwickler-Konferenz AEK

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