Nice interface, but MSSQL export needs work

I downloaded this to convert an MDB file to SQL, in order to import it into a SQL Server instance. The interface was good and the export was a seamless affair; it was quick and easy.

Until I attempted to run the exported SQL script on SQL Server 2012.

There were a lot of syntax issues with unique indices (I had to remove the schema definitions by hand), and the SQL generated for foreign keys doesn’t work well. It’s possible that some of the foreign key isues are due to the way that the Access database was set up, but I’m having to edit the SQL by hand to make this work correctly.

Of note: if you have an Access database that uses the “varbinary” type, and you export as MSSQL, the syntax will be incorrect; it uses the MySQL variant for the value insert (ex: x’589cf’) instead of the MSSQL hexadecimal syntax (ex: 0x589cf) so you’ll have to do a find and replace.

Overall, it’s not bad, compared to a lot of the alternatives, but just be aware that it requires tweaking.

lunchmeat317 about MDB Explorer - Access Viewer, read and export Access files