As you may be aware that SQL Server 2005 is steady and for the DBAs the task is to upgrade the database, in this scenario there will be a big question that whether the clients should be upgraded to use SQL Native client on the server. The backward compatibility of SQL Server 2005 engine will allow to connect the previous version’s MDAC client tools. But in order to take full advantages of 2005 version feature on server-end it is recommended to upgrade the client tools as well. As this is required to take new data types advantages, specifically. This will enable the application to make use of newest features in SQL Server 2005. Over the time there are considerable differences between MDAC and SQL Native cleint, to avoid any sort of mismatch of compatibility issues it is recommended to upgrade clients to SQL Native client, also this should not have any downtrend or issues to the application you are using. ]]>