Hello folks, after email conversation with James McKenzie, here is my revised how-to
Access 2000 can work with Wine, but this how-to doesn't require Microsoft Access.
How to set up Wine to enable Windows programs that read and write to Jet (Access) databases using ODBC. I write such programs in C and use the API defined in
ODBC API Reference http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms714562%28VS.85%29.aspx
They work fine on Windows and only require Mingw to be installed to compile and link them, both for console programs and those using Windows SDK. You then can write interactive programs in C which use a full-featured SQL database which comes bundled with Windows. No need to purchase Access. With the set-up below they will also run on Linux (Kubuntu 9.04) and Wine 1.1.26.
Install Jet Service Pack 4.0 and MDAC 2.8 thus:
winetricks jet40 mdac28
You need to update the registry to 'install' the Access drivers for ODBC. Under Windows, export from the Registry to a *.reg file the registry entry - HKLM\Software\ODBC all subsidiary keys and values come with it.
You can carefully edit this file to remove drivers and DSNs you don't need.
Import this file using the registry editor in wine:
wine regedit.exe.
To use Windows ODBC drivers, you have to override Wine's odbccp32.dll and odbc32.dll with the native versions because the Wine versions are currently wired directly to Linux's unixodbc.
Change the default setting for these DLLs using winecfg: Select Default Settings in the Applications tab. Then in the Libraries tab, select each of existing overrides for odbc32.dll and odbccp32.dll and edit them to be Native for Windows.
Bring across the programs and *.mdb database files from Windows.
If you need to set up (System) DSNs, enter
wine odbcad32.exe
this brings up the ODBC Data Source Administrator window as in the Windows Control Panel which you can use in the normal way to enter a DSN name, select its driver and the .mdb file.
The programs should then run as they did in Windows but perhaps a bit slower with:
wine Odbc-prog.exe
I've tried this out on a clean .wine install and it works with my test programs.
Barry Bird