Windows – Open MS Access from the Command line

command linewindows

Why is it that if I type calc then enter in the command line the calculator opens, but when I type MSAccess in the command line it says

    'msaccess' is not recognized as an internal or external command, operable program or bath file

I know there is a way to fix this and set it up, I have searched the web, but I don't know what to look for. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Best Answer

The error message means that there is no executable program named msaccess available anywhere on your path. "The path" refers to a list of paths search by the command line when searching for an executable. This list is stored in the %PATH% environment variable, and is separated by semi-colons.

There are only a few possibilities:

  • You are misspelling the program name, or it does not really exist. Navigate to the Access executable under C:\Program Files and verify that it is really spelled msaccess (and that it is installed). Incidentally, I just verified this on my system, so msaccess would appear to be the correct command.
  • The folder which contains msaccess is not in the %PATH% variable. Type echo %PATH% to find out. If not, you can add it to the path.
  • The only other possibility (very unlikely, but mentioned here for completeness sake) is that the file exists in the path, but is not actually an executable.
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