What's New in SQL Server Native Client
SQL Server 2012 contains the final version of SQL Server Native Client. SQL Server Native Client will not be updated in future releases of SQL Server. However, as a convenience to developers, SQL Server 2012 Native Client will ship in future releases of SQL Server.
For more information, see SQL Server Native Client OLE DB Provider Will Not Ship after SQL Server 2012.
The successor to SQL Server Native Client's ODBC driver in is called the Microsoft ODBC Driver 11 for SQL Server on Windows. This ODBC driver is available for download at Microsoft ODBC Driver 11 for SQL Server - Windows. This ODBC driver will also be installed with the database engine beginning in .
Development for the OLE DB Provider in SQL Server Native Client will stop with SQL Server 2012 Native Client. Developers who wish to use an OLE DB provider to connect to the latest version of SQL Server must use the OLE DB provider that shipped in SQL Server 2012 Native Client.
The following topics describe significant new SQL Server Native Client features in SQL Server 2012.
In addition, ODBC in SQL Server Native Client now supports three features that were added to standard ODBC in the Windows 7 SDK:
Asynchronous execution on connection-related operations. For more information, see Asynchronous Execution.
C Data Type Extensibility. For more information, see C Data Types in ODBC.
To support this feature in SQL Server Native Client, SQLGetDescField can return SQL_C_SS_TIME2 (for time types) or SQL_C_SS_TIMESTAMPOFFSET (for datetimeoffset) instead of SQL_C_BINARY, if your application uses ODBC 3.8. For more information, see Data Type Support for ODBC Date/Time Improvements.
Calling SQLGetData with a small buffer multiple times to retrieve a large parameter value. For more information, see Retrieving Output Parameters Using SQLGetData.
The following topics describe SQL Server Native Client behavior changes in SQL Server 2012.
When calling ICommandWithParameters::SetParameterInfo, the value passed to the pwszName parameter must be a valid identifier. For more information, see ICommandWithParameters.
SQLDescribeParam will now consistently return a value that conforms to the ODBC specification. For more information, see SQLDescribeParam.
ODBC Driver Behavior Change When Handling Character Conversions