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Information on Data Link Properties and OLE DB Providers

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There are many MSDN Help topics related to the Data Link Properties dialog box and to OLE DB and other data providers. Here is a selection of topics that provide information you might find particularly useful.

General Background

The help topics listed below provide overviews on data connection tools and strategies for choosing the right data access technologies.

The Data Link Properties dialog box is the standard Windows system interface for configuring connection strings to data sources. The Help topics displayed for its Provider, Connection, Advanced, and All tabs are stored in the msdasc.chm Help file.

**Note **  On Windows 2000 and later systems, the msdasc.chm help file for this dialog box is installed with the operating system in your system Help folder.

For more information, see the following topics:

Making Data Connections

Programming with ADO.NET

ADO.NET technology, part of the .NET Framework, makes it possible for you to connect programmatically to a data source just long enough to download and cache the dataset you require. You can then enable the user to interact with data-bound controls offline, without having to keep a network connection open continuously. ADO.NET is specifically designed to optimize data access using either XML or OLE DB data providers. ASP.NET Web forms use ADO.NET objects in the System.Data namespace to implement data handling.

For more information, see the following topics:

.NET Framework

Visual Basic .NET / Visual C# .NET

  • Introduction to Data Access with ADO.NET
  • Recommendations for Data Access Strategies
  • Web Data Access Strategy Recommendations
  • Data Access in Web Forms Pages

On the Internet

Programming the ADO Data Control

In Web projects that use previous ADO technology, the DataSource property of a DataList, DataCombo, or DataGrid control can be set to the name of an ADO Data Control. The ConnectionString property of that Data Control can, in turn, provide the path to a universal data link (.udl) file. The Active Server (.asp) page that hosts these controls will then connect to the data source specified in the .udl file, retrieve a recordset of data, and display that data in a list, dropdown menu, or table.

For more information, see the following topics:

Data Providers and Service Providers

The help topics listed below provide detailed information on installing, configuring, and using data providers and the service providers that encapsulate and extend them.

Microsoft Data Access Components (MDAC)

The Microsoft Data Access Components make it possible for you to integrate information into applications from a broad range of data sources. For more information, see the following topics:

Data Providers

A data provider owns its own data and exposes it in tabular form. It is not dependent on other providers — service or data — to provide data to the consumer. For more information, see the following topics:

OLE DB Provider for SQL Server [default]

OLE DB Provider for DTS Packages

OLE DB Provider for Exchange

  • OLE DB Provider for Exchange
  • PRB: Error 7321 When Executing a Select Statement to Query a Linked Server Using the Exchange OLE DB Provider
  • PRB: Errors Querying Exchange 5.5 Directory Using ADSI OLE DB Provider

Ole DB Provider for Host Integration Server [DB2]

OLE DB Provider for Microsoft Jet

OLE DB Provider for ODBC Drivers

OLE DB Provider for Oracle

OLE DB Simple Provider

OLE DB Provider for Visual FoxPro

Service Providers

A service provider does not own its own data. It encapsulates and adds features to an existing data provider, producing and consuming data through OLE DB interfaces. For more information, see:

OLE DB Provider for Analysis Services

OLE DB Cursor Service

OLE DB Data Shaping Service

OLE DB Provider for Directory Services

OLE DB Provider for Internet Publishing

OLE DB Provider for Microsoft Indexing Service

OLE DB Persistence Provider

OLE DB Remoting Provider

VSEE Versioning Enlistment Manager Proxy Data Source

See Also

Connecting to Remote Resources with Server Explorer | Databases in Server Explorer | Displaying Data Sources in Server Explorer | Adding Items from Server Explorer