AccessUtility 97 (.NET 10 Native AOT)

AccessUtility is a high-performance, standalone diagnostics, repair, forensic recovery, and migration suite built in .NET 10 (Native AOT) designed specifically for legacy Microsoft Access 97 (.mdb / Jet 3.5) databases.

Built completely independent of legacy COM drivers, Access runtime components, or System.Data.OleDb, AccessUtility parses, analyzes, and reconstructs 2048-byte Jet 3.5 binary pages directly with zero-allocation memory-mapped streaming.

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✨ Key Features & Capabilities

• ⚡ Native AOT Performance: Instantaneous startup time (<10ms), minimal RAM footprint, and zero runtime dependencies.
• 🗄️ Multi-Dialect SQL Migration Exporter: Translates legacy Jet 3.5 tables, primary keys, non-cyclic foreign keys, and saved query views into optimized DDL and batched DML scripts for:
  • PostgreSQL (SERIAL, BYTEA, TIMESTAMP, DOUBLE PRECISION)
  • MySQL / MariaDB (AUTO_INCREMENT, TINYINT(1), LONGTEXT, ENGINE=InnoDB)
  • Microsoft SQL Server (T-SQL) (IDENTITY(1,1), BIT, DATETIME2, NVARCHAR(MAX))
  • SQLite (INTEGER PRIMARY KEY AUTOINCREMENT, TEXT, BLOB)
  • Oracle (GENERATED ALWAYS AS IDENTITY, VARCHAR2, CLOB, BLOB)
  • ANSI SQL (Universal portable DDL)
• 📊 Modern Analytical Exporters: Direct physical export to Apache Parquet (with Snappy compression), DuckDB analytics database, and streaming JSON Lines (.jsonl).
• 🔬 Forensic Record Carver: Scans unallocated slack space and deleted slot directories to salvage dropped or deleted records with confidence scoring (High/Medium/Low).
• 🗺️ Interactive Physical Sector Map & Hex Inspector: Classifies every 2KB page (Header, PAM, TDEF, Data, Index, Slack, Corrupt) and displays formatted 16-byte hexadecimal and ASCII character views.
• 📈 Mermaid ERD Visualizer: Generates entity-relationship diagrams and Markdown documentation directly from database schemas.
• 🛡️ Deep Compact & Sector Repair: Purges slack space, isolates corrupt byte ranges, rebuilds page structures, and cleans up stale orphan .ldb lock files.
• 🔑 Password & Security Decryptor: Decrypts Jet 3.5 database passwords and parses System.mdw Workgroup information files.
• 🖼️ Media & Query Extractors: Extracts embedded OLE blobs (BMP, JPG, PDF, Word) and parses MSysQueries into standalone .sql files.
• 🤖 AX AI Assistant & Web UI: Interactive natural language CLI assistant and single-page embedded web dashboard.

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🚀 Quick Start

Ensure you have the .NET 10 SDK installed.

# Clone the repository
git clone https://github.com/hoangtran1411/access-utility.git
cd access-utility

# Build and run all 80+ unit tests
dotnet test

# Publish Native AOT single-file binary
dotnet publish -c Release

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💻 Command Reference

Command	Description	Example
diagnose	Run health check, PAM fragmentation, and optional forensic scan	AccessUtility.exe diagnose Main.mdb --forensic-scan
compact	Defragment database, rebuild pages, and shrink file size	AccessUtility.exe compact Main.mdb --output Clean.mdb
repair	Deep sector recovery with optional deleted record carving	AccessUtility.exe repair Damaged.mdb --carve-deleted
carve	Standalone forensic carver for slack space and deleted rows	AccessUtility.exe carve Damaged.mdb --output ./salvaged.sqlite
export	Export to Parquet, DuckDB, JSONL, Multi-Dialect SQL, SQLite, or CSV	AccessUtility.exe export Main.mdb --format sql --dialect postgres
schema	Export clean DDL schema script with primary and foreign keys	AccessUtility.exe schema Main.mdb --dialect mysql --output ./schema.sql
erd	Generate Mermaid entity-relationship diagram and markdown	AccessUtility.exe erd Main.mdb --output ./schema.md
hex	Inspect low-level 2048-byte page hexadecimal and ASCII dump	AccessUtility.exe hex Main.mdb --page 0
password	Decrypt database password and inspect .mdw workgroups	AccessUtility.exe password Protected.mdb
extract-ole	Extract embedded OLE media (BMP, JPG, PDF, DOC) to disk	AccessUtility.exe extract-ole Products.mdb --output ./extracted/
extract-queries	Reconstruct saved Access queries to .sql files	AccessUtility.exe extract-queries Sales.mdb --output ./queries/
lockstat	Inspect connected users and clean up orphan .ldb lock files	AccessUtility.exe lockstat Shared.mdb --clean
diff	Compare two database schemas and generate migration scripts	AccessUtility.exe diff Dev.mdb Prod.mdb --dialect postgres
daemon	Run background automated compaction and rolling backups	AccessUtility.exe daemon Main.mdb --interval 24h
logs	View and filter persistent SQLite audit logs	AccessUtility.exe logs --tail 50 --level Warning
web	Start embedded web dashboard with interactive visualizer	AccessUtility.exe web --port 5000
ax	Ask AX AI Assistant to execute maintenance tasks	AccessUtility.exe ax "Export schema to PostgreSQL SQL"

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📖 Documentation Index

For deep architectural dives and developer guides, explore the docs/ directory:

• 00 - Beginner's Guide to AccessUtility
• 01 - Introduction & Architecture
• 02 - Lock File (.ldb) Inspector Guide
• 03 - Compact & Repair Engine
• 04 - CLI & Web UI Guide
• 05 - Building, Testing & CI/CD
• 06 - Complete CLI Usage Commands
• 07 - Serilog Configuration & Telemetry
• 08 - SQLite Log Viewer Guide
• 09 - Recommendations & Future Roadmap
• 10 - Phase 1: Memory & Streaming Optimizations
• 11 - Phase 2: Modern Analytical Exporters (Parquet, DuckDB, JSONL)
• 12 - Phase 3: Web Dashboard Visualizer & ERD Diagrams
• 13 - Phase 4: Forensic Record Carving & Deleted Data Recovery
• 14 - Multi-Dialect SQL Schema & Migration Guide

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🤝 Contributing

Contributions are welcome! Please check out CONTRIBUTING.md for guidelines.

📝 License

This project is licensed under the MIT License - see the LICENSE file for details.