Mdac 2.6 or Mdac 2.7?
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Our old servers have MDAC 2.5 installed and we want to upgrade them. I heard that MDAC 2.6 had lots of bugs, should be avoided, and we should go for version 2.7. What's your recommendation.
TIA,
Bill
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MDAC 2.7. Why put off 'til tomorrow what you can upgrade today? Reboot once instead of twice. Come in on one saturday instead of 2. Need more?
Try http://www.microsoft.com/data/ to get the latest.
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A couple years back, I ran into a wide variety of problems with 2.5 and compiling and distributing a VB app. Changing over to 2.6 corrected my issues, and I never found it important enough to figure out exactly what caused the issue, but the point of what I'm saying is that in my humble opinion, 2.6 worked better for me. Even so, I think if possible, you should go with 2.7 and not worry about the headache again by having to upgrade 2.6 to 2.7
In other words, why bother with 2 upgrades if one will circumvent it.
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Personally, go with 2.7. 2.6 works fine for me and has been more dependable than 2.5 was as Scorpion sates he ran into. However, 2.7 is starting to remove least used items and something MS wants to make go away so make sure it will support your needs by testing. Another thing is if you are doing the programming and distributing a compiled executable test under what your customers have to make sure no compatibility issue. If it will not work say under 2.6 and you need your customers to upgrade to 2.7 make sure they are aware if they have a lot of legacy apps. You don't want to make them mad by breaking something else that has worked forever. If not an issue and just for the SQL Server, IIS or yourself 2.7 should be great. Also, keep in mind if you use a clustered SQL Server support on the MDAC has been broken since 2.5 (you thin after a year+ they would have corrected).
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quote:
Also, keep in mind if you use a clustered SQL Server support on the MDAC has been broken since 2.5 (you thin after a year+ they would have corrected).
Can you elaborate? We are 1-2 weeks from go-live with a brand spanking new clustered server. -
You got my attention with that one Antares686. Whats broken? Is there a workaround? What are the symptoms of the "brokeness"?
I got a buddy talking about upgrading his mdac on some clustered servers, and this info might save his butt.
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From the release notes on 2.6 and later.
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Due to issues with clustering, this release is currently NOT supported on SQL Server 7.0 Clustered Servers or SQL 6.5 Clustered Servers.Does not affect 2000, should have included that.
Page for 2.7 then read down thru each version.
http://www.microsoft.com/data/download.htm#27RTMinfo
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I was aware of the SQL 7/6.5 info. Thought there was something new i was missing.
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Sorry for putting you all in a lurch where this does not apply.
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One of our developers complains that a lot of stuff got taken out of MDAC 2.6. Unfortunately he is on leave so I can't elaborate.
If you are running MS SiteServer (nicknamed ShiteServer by every developer that comes across it) I wouldn't recommend upgrading because it is extremely fussy about the installation order of its components. We have found that if you don't install things in the recommended order the application simply doesn't work. This includes upgrading MDAC.
That said MDAC 2.7 has some useful stuff if you are using ADO.Stream objects.
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Versions of MDAC after 2.5 loose the ADSI and LDAP features
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I installed 2.7 on IIS server and found all my connections to SQL (DSN's) failed. It seems that the connection properties in 2.7 changed. Other than that found 2.7 OK.
Far away is close at hand in the images of elsewhere.
Anon. -
We upgraded our MDAC to 2.7 many months ago. (We develop third party software and we have to be using and distributing the newest versions of drivers before our customers get their hands on them or stuff happens!). From 2.6 to 2.7 it was a total non-event and we have over 450 active companies on our software.
From the Microsoft Web site on the matter (www.microsoft.com/data), it appears that 2.6 is what shipped with SQL Server 2000 SP2, and 2.7 is what shipped with XP. There must be at least one functional difference, because one of the hotfixes for MDAC says the vulnerability it covers exists in 2.6 but not in 2.7.
The gentleman who commented that 2.6 left out a lot of stuff is right. They unloaded the JET engine drivers and old (Win95) DCOM files. No big deal for the average developer, and if you need them they are available as separate installs.
Student of SQL and Golf, Master of Neither
Student of SQL and Golf, Master of Neither -
I've not personally experience any 2.6 "Bugs".
According to the author of "ADO.Net and ADO Examples and Best Practices for VB Programmers" ISBN: 1-893115-68-2 the new objects in Mdac 2.7 are .net objects.
The thing I particular liked when 2.6 came out was the Named.Parameters property which I heavily use now. Also I'm just starting to use the Field.Status property for better error handling.
Other new items in 2.6 are:
Enhanced XML support
Command Objects supporting Streams ( Stream support came in 2.5) to allow XML UpdateGrams
Single-Row Resultset
ADO MD (ADOX)
I have had Mdac 2.7 pushed out across our WAN when it first came out, and have nothing negative to report.
My suggestion would be to a test server and test client running those applications to see if there are any problems. If none, install 2.7 to allow your developers to take advantage of the newer features.
A new features available that I hope to start using is XML UpdateGrams.
hth
Can you elaborate? We are 1-2 weeks from go-live with a brand spanking new clustered server.
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