SQL Native Client 9.0 ODBC Driver

The SQL Server Native Client 9.0 ODBC Driver (SQL Native Client) was released with SQL Server 2005 and can access SQL Servers from 7.0 and above.

Programs that are written using the SQL Native Client ODBC driver communicate with SQL Server through function calls. The SQL Server-specific versions of the ODBC functions are implemented in the SQL Native Client ODBC driver. The driver passes SQL statements to SQL Server and returns the results of the statements to the application. The SQL Native Client driver supports connecting to SQL 7.0 and later.

The driver is included in the "Microsoft SQL Server 2005 Feature Pack". Search for it to make sure you download the latest release (new releases comes quite often).

The SQL Native Client ODBC driver complies with the Microsoft Win32 ODBC 3.51 specification. The driver supports applications written using earlier versions of ODBC in the manner defined in the ODBC 3.51 specification.;

More info about this driver can be found at the Microsoft product page.