When designing a new Crystal Report you have to create a new database connection. I have selected OLE DB (ADO) as the 'driver' as it made more sense than DAO,RDO or the other options for my requirements.
I need to execute an SQL Server 2005/2008 stored procedure on a remote server and show the results in Crystal Reports on a .NET client.
Selecting OLE DB, presents me with further options to select the correct provider, some of which are:
- Microsoft OLEDB provider for ODBC drivers
- Microsoft OLEDB provider for SQL Server
- SQL Native Client
- SQL Server Native Client 10.0
Which on is the best to use?
- I don't want to use the ODBC drivers, for various disadvantages (setting up ODBC definitions and maybe slower).
- Not sure how the OLEDB provider for SQL Server compares with the native client
- The native client forced me to run the native client setup on each desktop. It also seems that there is different version for each version of SQL Server.
Initially I thought the native client is the logical choice for compatibility and performance but deployment seems to be an issue (unless I am doing something wrong)
What is the best connection driver/provider combination to use here?
