This is apparently a new error message for an old problem:

We recently had two clients who experienced the same issue on the same day and it turned out they were both running Windows 10 and they both had recent updates installed on their computers. Both of their interfaces were also discrete import interfaces designed to import Excel spreadsheets.

As we noted in our February knowledge base article titled “Invalid Connection Handle When Importing Excel Spreadsheets“, our interfaces require the 32-bit 2007 Access Data Engine distribution to be installed in order to import XLSX files. This Microsoft distribution includes the 32-bit drivers we need behind the scenes to read XLSX files regardless of whether a user has Microsoft Office installed on their computer.

For whatever reason, when Microsoft Office (or maybe even Office365?) is reinstalled or upgraded it sometimes overwrites some of the driver files we require to import Excel files. But as we noted in the previous article can easily be fixed by reinstalling the files from the Microsoft Access Data Engine distribution which we provide with our interfaces when they are installed on the client’s computer.

The biggest difference here is the error message itself. On Windows 7 computers and earlier, the message is you’ll see is “Connection handle is invalid”, but with Windows 10 it looks like the message has been updated to read: “The operating system is not presently configured to run this application” which is much more confusing because this message isn’t actually referring to the TPC Interface itself, but rather one of the background processes the TPC interface calls behind the scenes.

The good news in all of this is the fix is very easy and relatively painless!

If you get this message and your interface depends upon importing Excel spreadsheets, then you probably need to re-install the 2007 Access Data Engine distributed by Microsoft. Re-installing it should not affect your existing Office version or configuration. Doing so will only re-load the behind-the-scenes software required for our interface to open and read Excel spreadsheets and extract data from them.

You’ll need to run the installer for the Access Database Engine which is distributed with your interface, or a zipped version can be downloaded by clicking here.

To run the version distributed with your interface:

1. Right click on the desktop icon that starts the TPC Interface
2. Left click on the option “Open File Location…”
3. Once the folder opens where the TPC Interface is installed, locate the file ‘AccessDatabaseEngine.exe’
4. Right click on the ‘AccessDatabaseEngine.exe’ file and run as an administrator
5. Take all defaults and let the installation complete
6. Close the Windows Explorer
7. Run the TPC Interface again and your files should import successfully now

To run the downloaded version:

1. Unzipped the downloaded file in a temporary location.
2. Locate the ‘AccessDatabaseEngine.exe’ file and run as an administrator
3. Take all defaults and let the installation complete
4. Close the Windows Explorer
5. Run the TPC Interface again and your files should import successfully now

If after completing the installation of the Access Database Engine, you continue to have issues, please contact us.