Creating a ColdFusion DSN Using Windows 98 and ME and Microsoft Access

Creating a ColdFusion DSN in Windows 98 and ME differs from doing the same task in Windows 2000 and XP. Windows 98 and ME rely on an older code base and lack some of the capabilities of the more recent versions of Windows.

One such change is that the ColdFusion Administrator’s Data Sources panel lacks a driver for Microsoft Access, in Windows 98 and ME. The directions provided for ColdFusion users to set up a ColdFusion DSN in Macromedia MX eLearning: Advanced Training From the Source and Macromedia Dreamweaver MX Dynamic Applications: Advanced Training From the Source only work in Windows 2000 and XP.

If you are using Windows 98 or ME, and you need to set up a ColdFusion DSN for a Microsoft Access database, you first need to define an ODBC DSN in Windows. Then you can bridge to that DSN in the ColdFusion Administrator, so that your ColdFusion pages can use it.

To define a System DSN in Windows,

  1. Go to Control Panel > ODBC Data Sources.
  2. Click the System DSN tab.
  3. Click the Add button.
  4. In the Create New Data Source dialog, select “Microsoft Access Driver (*.mdb)” and click Finish.
  5. In the ODBC Text Setup dialog, type in the desired the Data Source Name (e.g., “eLearning” or “newland”).
  6. In the Database section of the same dialog, click the Select (or Select Directory) button to browse to your database on the server. Select the database and click OK.
  7. Continue clicking OK buttons until you have finished and closed all the open dialogs.

Once the System DSN is defined in Windows, you can create a ColdFusion DSN that points to it.

  1. Open the ColdFusion administrator application (Start > Programs > Macromedia > Macromedia ColdFusion MX > Administrator).
  2. Enter your password to access the Administrator.
  3. Click the Data Sources link from the navigation bar on the left. The Data Sources frame appears in the main window. This is where you define a ColdFusion DSN.
  4. In the Data Source Name field, type in a name for your ColdFusion DSN. This may be the same name as the name you entered when you created the DSN in Windows.
  5. In the Driver drop-down, select JDBC-ODBC Bridge, and click the Add button.
  6. The JDBC to ODBC Bridge screen appears. In the ODBC-DSN drop-down menu, select the DSN you defined in Windows, e.g., “eLearning” or “newland.”
  7. Click the Submit button.

The ColdFusion DSN is now defined, and you can connect to data sources using ColdFusion and Macromedia Dreamweaver.