System Requirements for the JDBC Driver

To access data from a SQL Server database by using the Microsoft SQL Server JDBC Driver, you must have the following components installed on your computer: 

  • Microsoft SQL Server JDBC Driver

  • Java Runtime Environment

Java Runtime Environment Requirements

Starting with the Microsoft SQL Server JDBC Driver, the JDBC driver support for Java Database Connectivity (JDBC) Spec API has been extended to include the JDBC 4.0 API. The JDBC 4.0 was introduced as part of the Sun Java SE Development Kit (JDK) 6.0 and Java Runtime Environment (JRE) 6.0. JDBC 4.0 is a superset of the JDBC 3.0.

The Microsoft SQL Server JDBC Driver supports both JDBC 3.0 and JDBC 4.0.

When you deploy the Microsoft SQL Server JDBC Driver on Windows and UNIX operating systems, you must use the installation packages, sqljdbc_<version>_enu.exe and sqljdbc_<version>_enu.tar.gz, respectively. For more information about how to deploy the JDBC Driver, see Deploying the JDBC Driver topic.

To support backward compatibility and possible upgrade scenarios, the JDBC Driver includes 2 JAR class libraries in each installation package: sqljdbc.jar and sqljdbc4.jar.

JAR

Description

sqljdbc.jar

sqljdbc.jar class library provides support for JDBC 3.0.

sqljdbc.jar class library requires a Java Runtime Environment (JRE) of version 5.0. Using sqljdbc.jar on JRE 6.0 will throw an exception when connecting to a database.

Note

The JDBC Driver does not support JRE 1.4. You must upgrade JRE 1.4 to JRE 5.0 or JRE 6.0 when using the JDBC Driver. In some cases, you might need to recompile your application because it might not be compatible with JDK 5.0 or JDK 6.0. For more information, see the documentation on Sun Microsystems Web site.

sqljdbc4.jar

sqljdbc4.jar class library provides support for JDBC 4.0. It includes all of the features of the sqljdbc.jar as well as the new JDBC 4.0 methods.

sqljdbc4.jar class library requires a Java Runtime Environment (JRE) of version 6.0. Using sqljdbc4.jar on JRE 1.4 or 5.0 will throw an exception.

Note

Use sqljdbc4.jar when your application must run on JRE 6.0, even if your application does not use JDBC 4.0 features.

Note that the JDBC driver is designed to work with and be supported by all major Sun equivalent Java virtual machines, but is tested on Sun JRE 5.0 or JRE 6.0.

SQL Server Requirements

The JDBC driver has been designed specifically to use features introduced with SQL Server 2005, but it is backward-compatible with SQL Server 2000, including the 64-bit version. JDBC Driver 3.0 supports the new date and time types, large user-defined types, and sparse columns in SQL Server 2008.

Operating System Requirements

The JDBC driver is designed to work on any operating system that supports the use of a Java Virtual Machine (JVM). However, only Sun Solaris, SUSE Linux, and Windows XP or later operating systems have officially been tested.

Supported Languages

The JDBC driver supports all SQL Server column collations. For more information about the collations supported by the JDBC driver, see International Features of the JDBC Driver.

For more information about collations, see "Working with Collations" in SQL Server Books Online.

See Also

Other Resources

Overview of the JDBC Driver