Navigating the Windows DAC Documentation

Article
08/20/2012

This chart is designed to guide you through the documentation for the data access technologies included in Windows DAC\MDAC. Look on the chart to find information about what you want to learn, the problem you want to solve, or an activity you want to do. For a better understanding of the data access technologies, we recommend that you read the Data Access Technologies Road Map on the Microsoft Data Access and Storage Developer Center Web site.

Tasks	Go To	Language
Learn about data access technologies	Windows Data Access Components SDK Overview ActiveX Data Objects (ADO) Microsoft OLE DB Microsoft Open Database Connectivity (ODBC)
Use Visual Basic to create an application that uses data accessed from different data stores	Microsoft ActiveX Data Objects (ADO)	Visual Basic
Use a browser to create an application that uses data accessed from different data stores	Microsoft ActiveX Data Objects (ADO) Appendix D: ADO Samples	Active Server Pages
Expose multidimensional data using ADO	ADO (Multidimensional) (ADO MD)	Visual Basic, Visual C++, Visual J++
Expose data and services through OLE DB
Introductory	Microsoft OLE DB OLE DB Samples OLE DB Programmer's Guide OLE DB Simple Provider (OSP) Toolkit	Visual Basic, Visual C++, Visual J++
Advanced	OLE DB Providers Overview OLE DB Programmer's Guide OLE DB Test Tools	Visual C++
Use multidimensional data	OLE DB for Online Analytical Processing (OLAP)
Expose SQL data through ODBC	Microsoft Open Database Connectivity (ODBC)

Additional Resources

The following are additional resources for finding information about the data access technologies.

MSDN Online

The MSDN Online Web site offers a wide range of developer resources for finding help on specific topics. This site also contains the Windows SDK and other documentation, including Data Access Technical Articles.

Using the MSDN Online Search feature, you can access the Knowledge Base, Web Workshop, product information, documentation, and other resources.

Data Access Technologies Web Site

The Microsoft Data Access and Storage Developer Center Web site contains current information specific to data access technologies: ADO, OLE DB, and ODBC. On this site, you will find discussions of current issues, release manifests, downloads, and links to related technologies and sites.

Support Articles

Microsoft Support Articles articles contain specific solutions, workarounds, and other information about Microsoft technologies. The following topic includes some helpful keywords to use when searching the Knowledge Base for assistance with Windows DAC/MDAC: Windows DAC/MDAC KB Articles.

User Interface Help

Detailed help for the following components is available from their individual Help menus or dialog boxes. The following sections of the Windows DAC/MDAC documentation include general information about each component:

Windows DAC Samples

The Windows SDK installs some samples that illustrate the Windows DAC components. To access these samples, navigate to your Windows SDK root folder, such as C:\Program Files\Microsoft SDKs\Windows\v6.0. Then navigate to the appropriate subfolder: Samples\dataaccess\ADO, Samples\dataaccess ODBC, or Samples\dataaccess\OLEDB.

For additional information about data access samples, see the following topics: