SQL Server queries xls file worked yesterday(I swear), now refuses to. 0.o

Question

Hey all, the following select statement used to correctly query an Excel spreadsheet on a 64bit SQL Server 2008 R2, and now provides me with an error.

SELECT 
     MPNCode, Supplier, Stock , Price, Manufacturer, [Description]
FROM 
     OPENROWSET('Microsoft.ACE.OLEDB.12.0',
    'Excel 12.0 Xml;Database=C:\inetpub\wwwroot\nCompass\Products\Import\SupplierProducts.xls;HDR=YES',
                'SELECT * FROM [Sheet1$]') WHERE MPNCode IS NOT NULL

The error I get is.

OLE DB provider "Microsoft.ACE.OLEDB.12.0" for linked server "(null)" returned message "Unspecified error".
Msg 7303, Level 16, State 1, Line 1 Cannot initialize the data source object of OLE DB provider "Microsoft.ACE.OLEDB.12.0" for linked server "(null)".

I've tried restarting everything and googled the thing to death - somehow something has happened that is preventing this from working.

The file-path/file-name is correct because when I change the path I get a different error message.

Ad-hoc connections are enabled from the surface manager - after this I'm stumped at what the issue could be.

Any help will be very much appreciated.

Answer 1

Is the linked spreadsheet opened on the desktop? What happens if you create a new sheet in the same folder and try to open it instead?