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Connect QuickBooks Desktop Lesson 3 of 7 4 min

Installing the CData driver and gateway

Install the driver, install the gateway alongside it, and create the one user account everything else depends on.

Video coming soonThis lesson’s video is being recorded — the written steps below cover everything.

Two pieces get installed here, and they come from the same installer: the driver, which Windows exposes to the connector, and the QuickBooks Desktop Gateway, a small background service that is the only thing actually allowed to talk to QuickBooks. Everything in the rest of this course routes through that gateway — including connections that look like they don’t.

Steps

  1. Download the QuickBooks ODBC Driver from cdata.com/drivers/quickbooks/download. That page lists several drivers for the same data — JDBC, ADO.NET, Python and others. You want the one named QuickBooks ODBC Driver; the rest are for other kinds of application and won’t work here. There’s no separate 32-bit and 64-bit download to choose between, so if the installer asks about architecture later, take 64-bit. The trial is the same installer as the paid product — you register a license key afterwards.

  2. Run the installer and keep the gateway component selected. The installer offers the QuickBooks Desktop Gateway (older versions call it the Remote Connector) as part of the install. Leave it ticked — without it the driver has nothing to talk to.

  3. Open the gateway once the install finishes. It runs on this machine at http://localhost:8166 — note that port, you’ll type it into the data source in the next lesson.

  4. Add a gateway user. In the gateway’s Users section, create a user with a name and a password, and write both down. This is a login for the gateway itself, not a QuickBooks or Windows account, and you’re inventing it right now.

  5. Confirm the gateway is running. The gateway installs as a Windows service and also has a tray application. Either is fine — the point is that something is listening on 8166 before you go further.

Why the gateway user is not optional

It’s tempting to skip step 4. The data source you create next has a “direct” look to it — a local machine, a local company file, no obvious network in the picture.

There is a network in the picture. Even a direct connection goes to the gateway over HTTP on port 8166, and the gateway refuses anything that arrives without a valid user. Skip the user and the first connection test fails with 517 ... 401 Authorization Required, which reads like a licensing or web-server problem and is neither.

Good to know

  • If the installer fails partway, it’s usually a file left locked by a previous attempt — ConfigureODBC.exe is the common one. End that process in Task Manager and run the installer again; it picks up cleanly.
  • Windows on ARM: the driver installs and runs under x64 emulation and works normally. You don’t need to do anything differently here.
  • Only one thing can own port 8166. The gateway service and the tray application are two ways to run the same thing, and whichever starts first takes the port. If you later see connection-refused errors while the tray icon is clearly visible, that’s the collision to look for.
  • Same elevation as QuickBooks. Start the gateway the ordinary way, not with “Run as administrator” — for the reason covered in the first lesson.