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System Requirements for SQL Server Native Client

  • Article

Applies to: SQL Server Azure SQL Database Azure SQL Managed Instance Azure Synapse Analytics Analytics Platform System (PDW)

Important

SQL Server Native Client (SNAC) isn't shipped with:

  • SQL Server 2022 (16.x) and later versions
  • SQL Server Management Studio 19 and later versions

The SQL Server Native Client (SQLNCLI or SQLNCLI11) and the legacy Microsoft OLE DB Provider for SQL Server (SQLOLEDB) aren't recommended for new application development.

For new projects, use one of the following drivers:

For SQLNCLI that ships as a component of SQL Server Database Engine (versions 2012 through 2019), see this Support Lifecycle exception.

To use data access features of SQL Server such as MARS, you must have the following software installed:

  • SQL Server Native Client on your client.

  • An instance of SQL Server on your server.

SQL Server Native Client requires Windows Installer 3.1. Windows Installer 3.1 is already installed on Microsoft Windows operating systems. For all other platforms you need to explicitly install it. For more information, see Windows Installer 3.1 Redistributable (v2).

Note

Make sure you log on with administrator privileges before installing this software.

Operating System Requirements

For a list of operating systems that support SQL Server Native Client, see Support Policies for SQL Server Native Client.

SQL Server Requirements

To use SQL Server Native Client to access data in SQL Server databases, you must have an instance of SQL Server installed.

SQL Server 2014 (12.x) supports connections from all versions of MDAC, Windows Data Access Components, and all versions of SQL Server Native Client. When an older client version connects to SQL Server, server data types not known to the client are mapped to types that are compatible with the client version. For more information, see Data Type Compatibility for Client Versions, later in this topic.

Cross-Language Requirements

The English-language version of SQL Server Native Client is supported on all localized versions of supported operating systems. Localized versions of SQL Server Native Client are supported on localized operating systems that are the same language as the localized SQL Server Native Client version. Localized versions of SQL Server Native Client are also supported on English-language versions of supported operating systems as long as the matching language settings are installed.

For upgrades:

  • English-language versions of SQL Server Native Client can be upgraded to any localized version of SQL Server Native Client.

  • Localized versions of SQL Server Native Client can be upgraded to localized versions of SQL Server Native Client of the same language.

  • Localized version of SQL Server Native Client can be upgraded to the English-language version of SQL Server Native Client.

  • Localized versions of SQL Server Native Client cannot be upgraded to localized SQL Server Native Client versions of a different localized language.

Data Type Compatibility for Client Versions

SQL Server and SQL Server Native Client map new data types to older datatypes that are compatible with down-level clients, as shown in the table below.

OLE DB and ADO applications can use the DataTypeCompatibility connection string keyword with SQL Server Native Client to operate with older data types. When DataTypeCompatibility=80, OLE DB clients will connect using the SQL Server 2005 (9.x) tabular data stream (TDS) version, rather than the TDS version. This means that for SQL Server 2008 (10.0.x) and later data types, down-level conversion will be performed by the server, rather than by SQL Server Native Client. It also means that the features available on the connection will be limited to the SQL Server 2005 (9.x) feature set. Attempts to use new datatypes or features are detected as early as possible on API calls and errors are returned to the calling application, rather than attempting to pass invalid requests to the server.

There is no DataTypeCompatibility control for ODBC.

IDBInfo::GetKeywords will always return a keyword list that corresponds to the server version on the connection and is not affected by DataTypeCompatibility.

Data type SQL Server Native Client

SQL Server 2005		 SQL Server Native Client 11.0

SQL Server 2014 (12.x)		 Windows Data Access Components, MDAC, and

SQL Server Native Client OLE DB applications with DataTypeCompatibility=80
CLR UDT (<= 8Kb) udt Udt Varbinary
varbinary(max) varbinary varbinary Image
varchar(max) varchar varchar Text
nvarchar(max) nvarchar nvarchar Ntext
xml xml xml Ntext
CLR UDT (> 8Kb) udt varbinary Image
date date varchar Varchar
datetime2 datetime2 varchar Varchar
datetimeoffset datetimeoffset varchar Varchar
time time varchar Varchar

See Also

SQL Server Native Client Programming
Installing SQL Server Native Client