Windows – Import 32-bit dsn into 64-bit window server

See Windows Batch File (.bat) to get current date in MMDDYYYY format:

@echo off
For /f "tokens=2-4 delims=/ " %%a in ('date /t') do (set mydate=%%c-%%a-%%b)
For /f "tokens=1-2 delims=/:" %%a in ('time /t') do (set mytime=%%a%%b)
echo %mydate%_%mytime%

If you prefer the time in 24 hour/military format, you can replace the second FOR line with this:

For /f "tokens=1-2 delims=/:" %%a in ("%TIME%") do (set mytime=%%a%%b)

C:> .\date.bat
2008-10-14_0642

If you want the date independently of the region day/month order, you can use "WMIC os GET LocalDateTime" as a source, since it's in ISO order:

@echo off
for /F "usebackq tokens=1,2 delims==" %%i in (`wmic os get LocalDateTime /VALUE 2^>NUL`) do if '.%%i.'=='.LocalDateTime.' set ldt=%%j
set ldt=%ldt:~0,4%-%ldt:~4,2%-%ldt:~6,2% %ldt:~8,2%:%ldt:~10,2%:%ldt:~12,6%
echo Local date is [%ldt%]

C:>test.cmd
Local date is [2012-06-19 10:23:47.048]

It turns out that you can create 32-bit ODBC connections using C:\Windows\SysWOW64\odbcad32.exe. My solution was to create the 32-bit ODBC connection as a System DSN. This still didn't allow me to connect to it since .NET couldn't look it up. After significant and fruitless searching to find how to get the OdbcConnection class to look for the DSN in the right place, I stumbled upon a web site that suggested modifying the registry to solve a different problem.

I ended up creating the ODBC connection directly under HKLM\Software\ODBC. I looked in the SysWOW6432 key to find the parameters that were set up using the 32-bit version of the ODBC administration tool and recreated this in the standard location. I didn't add an entry for the driver, however, as that was not installed by the standard installer for the app either.

After creating the entry (by hand), I fired up my windows service and everything was happy.