OLE DB Providers Tested with SQL Server

SQL Server distributed queries have been tested with several OLE DB providers. The following tested OLE DB providers are installed with SQL Server:

The other tested providers are:

The following table shows the OLE DB providers that have been tested with SQL Server distributed queries. All these providers support being referenced in a SELECT statement by specifying a pass-through query in the OPENQUERY and OPENROWSET functions.

Data source

Provider name

Use in four-part names

Use in pass-through queries and commands

Use in INSERT, UPDATE, or DELETE

Use in distributed transactions

SQL Server 7.0 or later

Microsoft SQL Server Native Client OLE DB Provider

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

ODBC Data Sources

Microsoft OLE DB Provider for ODBC

Yes*

Yes

Yes*

Yes*

Microsoft Access (Jet) databases

Microsoft OLE DB Provider for Jet version 4.00

Yes

Yes

Yes (No if the database was created by using Microsoft Jet version 4.0 or earlier)

No

Microsoft Excel spreadsheets

Microsoft OLE DB Provider for Jet version 4.00

Yes

Yes

Yes

No

Oracle databases

Microsoft OLE DB Provider for Oracle

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Oracle databases**

Oracle Provider for OLE DB (8.1.7.3.0) for Windows 2000/NT

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Microsoft Windows 2000 Directory

Microsoft OLE DB Provider for Microsoft Directory Services

No

Yes

No

No

Local file system (through Indexing Services)

Microsoft OLE DB Provider for Microsoft Indexing Service (Requires Microsoft Windows NT 4.0 Service Pack 4 or later)

No

Yes

No

No

IBM DB2 databases

Microsoft OLE DB Provider for DB2

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Microsoft Exchange Server

Microsoft OLE DB Provider for Exchange Server

No

Yes

No

No

* The capabilities of the Microsoft OLE DB Provider for ODBC depend on the ODBC driver that is being used. The provider may not support all these capabilities with some ODBC drivers.

** Support for the Oracle Provider for OLE DB is as follows:

Oracle 32-bit

Out-of-proc only

Oracle 64-bit

None

Although Microsoft supports only distributed queries that reference the providers tested by Microsoft, distributed queries should work with any OLE DB provider that meets the requirements documented in the OLE DB Provider Reference for Distributed Queries.

If a provider does not support being used in a four-part name, the provider can be referenced in an OPENQUERY or OPENROWSET function by using a pass-through query.

See Also

Concepts