Comments welcome.Ī hex dump of a simple ACCDB file suggests that there are general similarities in structure to the latest versions of the predecessor MDB Format Family. A detailed analysis has not been attempted at this time, given the lack of public documentation this description covers the family of ACCDB formats. For this reason, the compilers of this resource consider that ACCDB must have subtypes. See, for example: Backward compatibility between Access 2010 and Access 2007 and What's new in Access 2016. Microsoft refers to the ACCDB format in the singular, but use of some features introduced into later versions of the Access application will result in database files that cannot be opened by earlier versions. Versions of the ACE engine released through May 2017, some of which can be downloaded at no charge from Microsoft, include ACE 12 (Access 2007) ACE 10 (Access 2010) ACE 15 (Access 2013) ACE 16 (Access 2016). See Wikipedia entry for Microsoft Jet Database Engine.

A key difference between ACCDB and MDB is that with Access 2007, Microsoft introduced a new database engine (the Office Access Connectivity Engine, referred to also as ACE and Microsoft Access Database Engine) to replace the Jet database used for MDB files. Other than the Microsoft Access application, ODBC is the primary means of access to data in an Access database from other software, including other database applications.Īlthough there was a reverse engineering effort to document the predecessor MDB format publicly, there appears to be no equivalent activity for the ACCDB format. Microsoft has provided no public specification for the ACCDB format, but supports programming access via the Open Database Connectivity ( ODBC) standard and Visual Basic for Applications ( VBA). See, for example, Which Access file format should I use? from Microsoft.

Despite the advantages of the ACCDB format, there are still reasons to use MDB with Microsoft Access 2016. mdb file format extension was used for all databases created by Access prior to Access 2007. See, for example, Introduction to the Access 2007 file format from Microsoft and File Formats: ACCDB vs MDB | Access 2007 and Later Use the ACCDB File Format. accdb file format extension has been used for a proprietary file format, developed by Microsoft and used as the default format for Microsoft Access versions from Access 2007 through Access 2016 (current version as of May 2017). Microsoft Access ACCDB File Format Family

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