Microsoft ODBC Desktop Database Drivers

  • Article

ODBC is an API that uses Structured Query Language (SQL) as the database access language. You can access a wide variety of database management systems (DBMSs) with the same ODBC source code that is directly incorporated into an application's source code. With the Microsoft ODBC Desktop Database Drivers, a user of an ODBC-enabled application can open, query, and update a desktop database through the ODBC interface.

The Microsoft ODBC Desktop Database Drivers are a Microsoft Jet-based set of ODBC drivers. Whereas Microsoft ODBC Desktop Database Drivers 2.0 include both 16-bit and 32-bit drivers, versions 3.0 and later include only 32-bit drivers that work on Windows 95 or later, Windows NT Workstation or Server version 4.0, Windows 2000 Professional, or Windows 2000 Server. These drivers provide access to the following types of data sources:

  • Microsoft Access

  • Microsoft Excel

  • Paradox

  • dBASE

  • Text

See Visual FoxPro ODBC Driver for detailed documentation about the Microsoft Visual FoxPro ODBC Driver.

Note

Access to other data sources, such as Lotus 1-2-3, Microsoft Exchange, and HTML, is enabled by installable ISAM (IISAM) drivers. For more information about these drivers, see "Accessing External Data" in the Microsoft Jet Database Engine Programmer's Reference. ODBC Desktop Database Drivers 4.0 do not support Btrieve and EMS data formats.

This section contains the following topics.