I need a DSN to import .dbf files in SQL Server Management Studio v18.10

SQL Server Administration
1

None of the DSN's I have work, and all I can find via google search are dead links.
Surely there still has to be a way to import a .dbf file?
Someone please help!

2

Have you looked at this?

Also check the comments, you may have to install some MS Office components.

Typically MS Excel can open a DBF file too, so if you have that installed see if it appears in the File Type list when you go to open a file. If it doesn't show up, then check the comments for the version of the Access Database driver you need to install.

3

Yes, I've seen that, along with many other pages that deal with the same procedure.
The issue I'm having is... I don't have
Microsoft Office 12.0 Access Database Engine OLE DB Provider
and I can't find it anywhere. It is no longer available for download on Microsofts' site.

None of the drivers (DSN's) that I have will let me import .dbf files.

I even downloaded
Microsoft Access Database Engine 2016 Redistributable
as suggested, to no avail.

There HAS to be a way to do this... DBF is a VERY COMMON data format!

4

Well, it used to be common, but sadly it's not used as much as it used to be.

I don't know if these help, but it might point you towards other options:

There's a note there about the Borland database engine, but no link on where to get it.

If you can get the Visual FoxPro driver, that should open DBF files.

I found a reference to using OpenOffice to open the DBF file. While it might not get it into SQL Server directly, you could save the data in CSV or something else to get it imported.

Similarly there's:

I used that to create a test DBF file, and was able to open it directly in Excel 2019. I still couldn't get the ODBC driver to work with it though.

One other thread suggested the MS 365 Access Runtime:

And lastly, if nothing else works, if you can find a Windows XP or maybe Vista machine or installation CD, those should have functioning ODBC drivers for dBase.

You might have to let go of the idea of opening DBF files on Windows 10/Windows 2016 and higher OS's, Microsoft doesn't seem to want to support it properly anymore. They don't support Lotus 1-2-3 or Visicalc anymore either.