Find all Access databases, and Compact and Repair - batch-file

Question

I'm trying to find all Access databases in a directory and Compact and Repair each without opening Access each time. I found the following article explaining how to find them and write to a file:
Batch file to find all Access Databases, but ideally I'd like to just find them and compact without writing to a file.
I have searched how to call the /compact command line functionality, but I don't know how to do it on the databases I find. Can a .bat file be written to do this? Something like:
#echo off
"C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office14\MSACCESS.EXE" "C:\Databases\ /s" *.accdb /compact
Any help with the syntax is very much appreciated.

Answer 1

Consider using Access' dedicated CompactRepair method which you can run in VBA (inside an Access database or outside like in an Excel macro). The thing to note is Compact & Repair actually creates a copy of existing database and replaces it with original, so some file handling is needed.
VBA (inside MSAccess.exe)
Sub RunCompactDBs()
Dim path As String
Dim accfile As Variant
path = "C:\Databases\"
accfile = Dir(path & "*.accdb", vbDirectory)
Do While Len(accfile) > 0
bkfile = Replace(accfile, ".accdb", "_bk.accdb")
' CREATE COMPACTED BACKUP
Application.CompactRepair path & accfile, path & bkfile, False
' COPY TO ORIGINAL PATH
FileCopy path & bkfile, path & accfile
' DESTROY COMPACTED BACKUP
Kill path & bkfile
accfile = Dir
Loop
Set accApp = Nothing
End Sub
VBA (outside MSAccess.exe)
Sub RunCompactDBs()
Dim path As String
Dim accfile As Variant
Dim accApp As Object
Set accApp = CreateObject("Access.Application")
path = "C:\Databases\"
accfile = Dir(path & "*.accdb", vbDirectory)
Do While Len(accfile) > 0
bkfile = Replace(accfile, ".accdb", "_bk.accdb")
accApp.CompactRepair path & accfile, path & bkfile, False
FileCopy path & bkfile, path & accfile
Kill path & bkfile
accfile = Dir
Loop
Set accApp = Nothing
End Sub
And there's no reason to stick with VBA. Any language that can make a COM interface to the Access object library can run the compact and repair procedure like open-source languages:
Python
import os, glob, shutil
import win32com.client
# LAUNCH ACCESS APP
oApp = win32com.client.Dispatch("Access.Application")
for file in glob.glob("C:\\Databases\\*.accdb"):
bkfile = file.replace(".accdb", "_bk.accdb")
oApp.CompactRepair(file, bkfile, False)
shutil.copyfile(bkfile, file)
os.remove(bkfile)
oApp = None
R
library(RDCOMClient)
# LAUNCH ACCESS APP
oApp = COMCreate("Access.Application")
accfiles <- list.files(path="C:\\Databases\\", pattern="\\.accdb", full.names=TRUE)
for (file in accfiles){
bkfile = sub(".accdb", "_bk.accdb", file)
oApp$CompactRepair(file, bkfile, FALSE)
file.copy(bkfile, file, overwrite = TRUE)
file.remove(bkfile)
}
oApp <- NULL
gc()
PHP
# LAUNCH ACCESS APP
$acc = new COM("Access.Application", NULL, CP_UTF8) or Die ("Did not instantiate Access");
foreach (glob("C:\\Databases\\*.accdb") as $file) {
$bkfile = str_replace(".accdb", "_bk.accdb", $file);
$acc->Application->CompactRepair($file, $bkfile, false);
copy($bkfile, $file);
unlink($bkfile);
}
$acc = NULL;
unset($acc);