0 MSSQL Server Client use what kind of SQL Provider

This chart is base on the MSDN article here.

	isql.exe	osql.exe	sqlcmd	QA	sqlwb.exe	ssms.exe
SQL 2000	DB-Library: ntwdblib.dll	ODBC: sqlsrv32.dll	N/A	ODBC:sqlsrv32.dll	N/A	N/A
SQL2005	N/A	ODBC: sqlncli.dll	OLEDB: sqlncli10.dll	N/A	System.Data.sqlclient .Net Framework 2.0	N/A
SQL 2008	N/A	ODBC: sqlncli10.dll	OLEDB: sqlncli10.dll	N/A	N/A	System.Data.sqlclient .Net Framework 3.5 SP1
SQL 2008R2	N/A	ODBC: sqlncli10.dll	OLEDB: sqlncli10.dll	N/A	N/A	System.Data.sqlclient .Net Framework 3.5 SP1
SQL 2012	N/A	ODBC: sqlncli11.dll	ODBC: sqlncli11.dll	N/A	N/A	System.Data.sqlclient .Net Framework 4.0

 

• QA is query analyser. It is the MSSQL 2000 GUI tool. It has been replaced by SSMS from SQL Server 2005.
• sqlwb.exe is the SSMS 2005 binary name. From SQL Server 2008, it has been renamed to ssms.exe.
• sqlncli* is the SQL Server native client. It supported multiple protocols, such as ODBC, OLEDB… etc. sqlcmd used to use OLEDB but in SQL 2012, it changes to use ODBC.

 

Reference

• http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms162773.aspx
• http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms190611.aspx
• http://blogs.msdn.com/b/apgcdsd/archive/2013/01/10/sql-server-provider.aspx