What's New in SQL Server Native Client

SQL Server 2014 installs SQL Server 2012 Native Client. There is no SQL Server 2014 Native Client.

There will be no more updates to the ODBC driver in SQL Server Native Client. The successor to the ODBC driver in SQL Server Native Client, which is called the Microsoft ODBC Driver 11 for SQL Server on Windows, is installed with SQL Server 2014. For more information about the Microsoft ODBC Driver 11 for SQL Server on Windows, see Microsoft ODBC Driver 11 for SQL Server - Windows.

The OLE DB Provider in SQL Server Native Client was last updated in 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.

• SQL Server Native Client Support for LocalDB

• Metadata Discovery

• UTF-16 Support in SQL Server Native Client 11.0

• SQL Server Native Client Support for High Availability, Disaster Recovery

• Accessing Diagnostic Information in the Extended Events Log

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 and 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

See Also

SQL Server Native Client Features