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Project 2007 Binary Data

  • Article

Good comment came in that I thought would make a good post:

Is there a way to extract the blob the MS Project file... I had problem doing that in the SDK 2003 (did a dirty solution having a background process running a MS Project client that use a Macro to save down a MS Project file ...

The binary format of the Project file remains undocumented for Project 2007. The best solution used to be to using the OLEDB provider, it would give you read-only access to the Project. But the OLEDB provider is not being included in Project 2007. Additionally, the database schema for Project is no longer going to published. Since the schema was published many years ago we’ve had a fixed base schema with only being able to make additions. When you publish a schema it becomes an API for access, and any API is an implied contract for developers. Keeping the fixed base helped us maintain our “contract” to keep backward compatibility. By not publishing the schema there will be flexibility for fixes and feature additions, especially around Project Server.

Your best bets, I’m assuming this is standalone Project, is either OLE automation through the client (which I believe is what you’re describing above), or using the XML schema.

Comments

  • Anonymous
    July 20, 2006
    Hi Larry,

    Understand the decision for this, good idea. Wanted to check - I'm assuming that you mean the core Project database schema won't be documented, but the Reporting database will?

    Thanks, Alex.
  • Anonymous
    July 24, 2006
    The Reporting DB will be documented as part of Project Server 2007.  it's not a choice for use from the desktop product.