Reverse Engineering for Database Diagrams in Visio with SQL Server 2008

Question

I need to redesign Microsoft SQL Server 2008 to create a diagram of the Microsoft Visio 2007 database model. Therefore, I select Reverse Engineer from the Database menu to connect to the database.

I configured the Visio Microsoft SQL Server driver so that the native SQL Server 10.0 client is used as the ODBC driver. Subsequently, I created a User DSN that connects to my database. This DSN works (at least the provided test was successful). After clicking the Reverse Engineer Wizard button, Visio kindly asks for my credentials, which I provide correctly, but after clicking OK, the following message appears:

The currently selected Visio driver is not compatible with the data source.

I tried using the old ODBC SQL Server driver, also of course by reconfiguring the Visio driver. This does not work either.

Answer 1

From Microsoft Support through Microsoft Forums:

Further research shows that this is the expected behavior for Visio 2007. When Visio opens a connection using the Visio SQL Server driver, it checks the server version and, since SQL Server 2008 was sent after Visio 2007, it does not recognize SQL Server 2008 as a supported version and closes the connection . You can wait for a future version of Visio to send that recognizes SQL Server 2008 or uses the Visio Generic ODBC driver that can successfully open connections to SQL Server 2008. The third option is to use a copy of SQL Server 2005 for initial reverse engineering. The Visio Team is aware of this problem .

Answer 2

To connect Visio 2007 to the SQL Server 2008 database, run the Reverse Engineer Wizard (Database / Reverse Engineer ...) in Visio 2007, select the ODBC Generic driver from the "Installed Visio Drivers" drop-down list. Then create a new data source using your own SQL client (2005.90.4035, 2005 SP3). You will receive a warning that some information may be incomplete. Click OK and continue. This is not the most intuitive solution (but not difficult), but at least it will allow you to use Visio 2007 to connect to SQL 2008.

Chip Lambert, Slalom Consulting

Answer 3

An old thread, but still an actual problem ... I found that although the Generic Driver worked using ODBC, the reverse engineering tool then skips triggers, control clauses, views, and stored procedures. By specifying Access Visio Driver instead, at least we are restoring Check Clauses and Views.

On the whole, however, I have to say that I believe that this shows terrible inappropriateness for my clients on behalf of the corresponding teams at Microsoft. Last year, I had a very similar experience when upgrading to Visual Studio 2010, to find that my SSIS projects no longer open ... as you can see from this thread , MS doesn't care.

Answer 4

You can create a custom DSN in the ODBC Data Source Administrator and then connect to your MSSQL 2008 instance through Visio 2007 using the generic ODBC driver instead of the Microsoft SQL Server driver.

You can also try SQL Server 2008 Data Mining Addins for Office 2007.

Grab them here: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=896A493A-2502-4795-94AE-E00632BA6DE7&displaylang=en

Hope this helps!

Greetings

Answer 5

I ended up using the Generic OLE Db Provider instead of the Generic ODBC generator to connect to SQL Server 2008 - the data types seemed to go through OK.

Answer 6

I also had this problem, as higher than I found a job

• used the master reverse engineer
• using the generic OLE Db provider in the first step
• then install the connection provider in the next step to the highest SQL driver shown (I am using SQL2016 with SQL native 11.0 on Windows 10 surface pro 4 for reference)

• then enter the correct destination address and credentials in the connection tab (test the connection if you are not sure)

  and it seemed to work for me (I then had the opportunity to bring indexes through tables, look through primary and foreign keys and saved procedures).

I also found that visio continued to block me ... apparently this is a common occurrence (and there I felt special) after I finally got sick, I looked at these links.

https://dhondiyals.wordpress.com/2011/07/29/microsoft-visio-2010-crashes-very-frequently-resolved/

https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/msoffice/forum/msoffice_visio-mso_windows8/visio-2010-frozen-on-surface-pro/df1df27a-6585-4b0c-8442-a4363c541e08

I found that my problem is later (touch screen and handwriting application). So it ended, and now I have the experience that I expected