MDAC 2.5 SDK - Technical Articles

MDAC 2.0

The MDAC 2.0 release contains the complete MDAC SDK and a few new technologies. MDAC 2.0 is available on the Microsoft Universal Data Access Web site. You can download MDAC 2.0 and then install the latest MDAC 2.1 Service Pack (currently SP2) to get the latest version of all components. You should also get the Data Access SDK 2.1 Updater to update the documentation at the Microsoft Universal Data Access Web site.

The MDAC 2.0 redistribution program is distributed within the MDAC 2.0 SDK. The MDAC 2.0 SDK combines and updates the contents of MDAC 1.5, the ODBC 3.5 SDK and the OLE DB 1.5 SDK, and the OLE DB for OLAP specification. The MDAC SDK is a single set of components; ADO/RDS cannot be run separately.

MDAC 2.0 Release Details

There were three important releases of MDAC 2.0, which are described in the following table.

MDAC 2.0 Release Manifests

The following table lists all of the modules that were distributed with each release, not including setup modules, sample files, and SDK tools. Version numbers in boldface indicate an update or new component. Empty cells in the table indicate that module did not ship with that release of MDAC. This is not a complete list of the files that must be redistributed; see the section in this article titled Redistributing MDAC for more information.

File Versions

MDAC 2.0 Release Notes

ODBC 3.51 was tested and supported on Microsoft Windows NT 3.51 and 4.0 and on Microsoft Windows® 95. OLE DB 2.0, ADO 2.0, and RDS 2.0 were tested and supported on Windows NT 4.0 and Windows 95. However, dependencies in these three components prevent their being supported or tested on Windows NT 3.51.

The MDAC SDK was released for the Intel platform but contains Alpha platform versions of both the MDAC 2.0 redistribution program and the RDS 2.0 client components .cab file.

MDAC 2.0 installs three .cab files on your machine: Mdac11.cab, Mdac20.cab, and Mdac20_a.cab. Msadc11.cab is for older versions of Microsoft Internet Explorer and Web-based applications that need RDS 1.1 client components (which work with RDS 2.0 server components, just as they did for 1.5). Mdac20.cab and Mdac20_a.cab provide RDS 2.0 client components for Intel and Alpha platforms, respectively.

ADO MD and the underlying OLAP provider, Microsoft PivotTable® Service, are included in MDAC 2.0. ADO MD, the high-level object model for exposing multidimensional data, is contained in a single DLL (Msadomd.dll). However, the PivotTable Service shipping with the MDAC 2.0 SDK is a beta technology and should not be redistributed.

MDAC 2.0 Redistribution Notes

The MDAC SDK combines all of the run-time components, documentation, and samples and provides an integrated redistribution program in the <Drive>:\Msdasdk\Redist directory. Previously, the MDAC 1.5 stand-alone and redistribution program shipped separately, occasionally creating confusion. However, the MDAC SDK is completely self-contained and integrated. The 40-MB SDK is easier to distinguish from the 7.9-MB MDAC 2.0 redistribution program.

The MDAC 2.0 redistribution program comes in one version and installs all of the MDAC 2.0 components as well as ODBC drivers and OLE DB providers for Access, Microsoft Jet, Oracle, and SQL Server. The Microsoft Visual FoxPro® ODBC Driver is also included in the redistribution. Previously, this driver was available only by Web download.

The one MDAC 2.0 component dependency not handled by the MDAC 2.0 redistribution is for DCOM95 components. OLE DB 2.0 uses definitions found in an update to Ole32.dll that is available in the DCOM95 patch. Ole32.dll is only one DLL out of several that make up the OLE library. Simply installing the new version of this DLL does not guarantee MDAC 2.0 will work. You have to apply the entire DCOM95 patch, available from http://www.microsoft.com/com/resources/downloads.asp. The MDAC redistribution program detects when DCOM95 is not installed on a machine, in which case a dialog box instructs the user to install DCOM95.