Entity Framework with OleDB connection – am I just plain nuts?

calendar_today Asked Jul 15, 2009
thumb_up 13 upvotes
history Updated April 16, 2026

Question posted 2009 · +5 upvotes

I’m experimenting with the Entity Framework and I want to connect to an Access 2007 database.

The following code is inspired by http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/system.data.entityclient.entityconnection.connectionstring.aspx

I suspect that I’ve got the wrong end of the stick…

OleDbConnectionStringBuilder oledbConn = new OleDbConnectionStringBuilder();

oledbConn.DataSource = @"........Pruebas.accdb"; //yep Access 2007!

EntityConnectionStringBuilder entityBuilder = new EntityConnectionStringBuilder ();
entityBuilder.Provider = "Microsoft.ACE.OLEDB.12.0";
entityBuilder.ConnectionString = oledbConn.ToString();
EntityConnection ec = new EntityConnection(entityBuilder.ToString());
ec.Open();
ec.Close();

The EntityConnectionStringBuilder tells me that it doesn’t support the DataSource property. I can connect fine with ADO.net so I know that the path and the provider are correct.

Is this just the complete wrong approach?

Accepted answer +13 upvotes

The approach you are using to build the EF connection string is correct.

BUT…

The Entity Framework only works with Providers (i.e. SqlClient) that support something called provider services.

The OleDB provider doesn’t support ‘Provider Services’ so you can’t use EF with the OleDb (unless you can find a third party OleDb provider with support for EF).

Hope this helps

Alex

(Entity Framework Team, Microsoft)

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