The main reason is because OleDb drivers are a pain from VFP. Lots of weird inconsistencies and things that don't work. Plus the only thing that really uses it (with auto-conversion to VFP data) is the DataAdapter which all in itself is oddball funky technology.

It used to be there were a few features that only the OleDb provider provided like Unicode transcoding, but that's actually been added in VFP 9 with the Odbc drivers as well.

Even if it weren't discontinued I'd stick with ODBC as the more reliable, universally used and overall simple low level technology that just works.

+++ Rick ---

>HI Craig, why (in a nutshell) is oledb not recommended?
>
>>No. You have to use ODBC or OLEDB (not recommended)
>>
>>>Bill: I think that I am the one who is confused. Will VFP7 read a SQL Server table directly??
>>>Randy