Office 365 C2R: Excel ODBC driver missing

[German]Here's a little tip for Office 365 administrators: Click-2-Run does not install any ODBC drivers for Microsoft Excel. Blog reader Karl Ebbing-Westerhaus (@tweet_alqama) has found a solution to the problem.

The click-to-run installations (C2R) of Office 365 are always good for issues. Microsoft has published the support article Can't use the Access ODBC driver or OLEDB provider outside Office Click-to-Run applications. It explains that click-to-run installations of Office run in an isolated virtual environment on the local operating system. Some applications outside Office may not know where to look for the installation in the isolated environment. It suggests a workaround using a Data Source Name (DSN) connection of an Office application.

ODBCAD32 driver missing C2R Office 365

Blog reader Karl was faced with the issue that he lacked the Excel ODBC drivers and opened a support ticket at Microsoft. However, not much feedback came from the support. He picks it up on Twitter.

Ffs… After 77+ days I've been able to solve an @Office365 ticket – myself.
Target agreement: release a new docs article
"Excel ODBC drivers are missing in C2R Office 365 – ODBCAD32 – The driver for this User-DSN is not available. It can only be removed"

Solution:

— al Qamar (Karl Wester-Ebbinghaus) (@tweet_alqamar) 1. Juli 2019

At the end of the day the solution was quite simple: It had to install the Access 2016 Runtime (x86 or x64) to get the driver. This also helps when accessing dBase or text files. He posted the details in several tweets.

How long is that working?

In this UserVoice entry a user demands that Microsoft finally integrate the Access Runtime into the C2R editions without Microsoft Access. The problem: It is not possible to install the current version of the Access runtime libraries. The Access Runtime is available as an MSI installation, while Office 365 is delivered as a Click-to-Run installation. They do not fit together.

This leads to the crude situation that the Access 2019 runtime environment cannot be installed. Users are stuck on the Access 2016 runtime environment (or earlier). The requirement is to integrate the current version of the Access Runtime into the C2R versions of Office, e.g. Office 365 E3.