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charlesc's avatar
charlesc
New Member
11 years ago
Solved

Connecting to an encrypted MS Access database in Power BI Preview desktop

Is there a particular syntax I need to use to open a password protected database? The interface is returning 'not a valid password' rather than a password prompt, so i tried amending the query string for the source in the advanced editor to:

 

let
    Source = Access.Database(File.Contents("R:\Databases\Membership.accdb","PWD=xxxxxxx"))
in
    Source

 

This was just a guess really on finding a similar syntax on an unrelated technet page. however it then returns 'expected 1 argument and found 2'. Attempting to add /PWD as a switch in the single argument is viewed as an additional file/directory.

4 Replies

  • cw29's avatar
    cw29
    New Member

    Friend, I suffered... Use an OLE DB connection like this:

     

    provider=Microsoft.ACE.OLEDB.12.0;data source=C:\PathToYourDatabase\DBAccessNameHere.accdb;jet oledb:database password=yourpasswordhere

     

    It works! Believe me.

    • pacholca01's avatar
      pacholca01
      New Member

      If you are using this in excel, you'll want to make sure the connection string is using the proper case for the parameters and that you include the ";" at the end of the connection string. You'll also want to include a SELECT statement. If your access db has table that use hypens, then you will need to change the access tables names to use underscores instead, otherwise an error will be thrown. See article for description of solution.

       

      https://superuser.com/questions/1309052/how-to-import-password-protected-ms-access-tables-to-excel

  • Anonymous's avatar
    Anonymous
    Not applicable

    Does anyone know if Password-protected Access database files are supported now? I also get "not a valid password"