In addition to the built-in providers (OleDb, SqlServer, Oracle, MSOracle) you can use any other .NET data provider by selecting the Custom option in the connection type combo box. For example, the CustomDataProvider sample in the ComponentOne Samples directory uses Microsoft ODBC .NET Data Provider.

Setting ConnectionType = Custom (selecting Custom when you create a new Connection), you indicate that you will use a .NET data provider DataObjects for .NET does not know about. There are two differences in using a custom (generic) data provider comparing with using one of the four providers included in the ConnectionType list:

• You cannot create a whole schema by importing database structure. But you can manually define tables one-by-one and retrieve their field from the database structure, and, of course, you can manually create relations and data sets.
• You need to specify necessary information about the provider, such as its assembly name, several type names, and so on, in CustomProviderInfo, telling DataObjects for .NET how to use the provider.