What I'm doing: Using ADODB interface to a MS Access 2007 db.
The Problem: The access db will not open when using 64bit compilation.
Notes:
First why use the old ADODB accessing methodology? No real reason other than I like the old school way of doing sql against a db. Yes...yes, I know just use ado.net with it's adapter object...bah bah bah. As a matter of fact going down the standard way of talking to the db through ado.net solves this issue when using 64bit. Yes, it does. You can create the db adapter, open the db, and problem solved.
But this doesn't change the fact that I like using the old way...and yes I know that at some point I will have to let that go and move on. But for now, it's interesting to discover an issue within my current code and document how some things do not move forward as in being compatible.
So, my ADODB db connector will not open the access db (and when I mean "won't" open it that's what I mean- for reading or writing). Now one might think that a failure to open a db connector would cause an error to get thrown. Well, no error is thrown, the connector acts as if it's opened ok, and reads against a recordset on the connector do not return an error either. Very very strange indeed. One would think that ADODB would at least throw an error at some place. But no
.
Solution:
Use the standard ADO.Net objects to connect and access the database- or use a form control with databinding (less flexible in my opinion).
Use the 32bit compiler by changing the program properties (i.e. active compile cpu=x86). For some reason, this seems to work.
Observations:
It would be nice to be able to just set cpu=anycpu (my cpu/os is 64bit). I thought at first that I was running into Vista's DEP (google 'Vista DEP' if you don't know about what DEP is) Well, after turning DEP off and seeing no change I figured this issue was not DEP. That is until I found out that you can't disable DEP for 64bit apps (neat Vista 'feature') So this may very well be a DEP issue.
Maybe as Vista matures, MS will fix the many issues with DEP. I haven't tested my on a 32bit edition of Vista (maybe one day when I get foolish enough to change the OS from XP to Vista on one of my x86 computers- I'll give a test see).
-Or maybe I now have a reason to move from the old ADODB model to how everyone else accesses a db?
We shall see 
~cse