Transferring Data Between SQL Server Versions

You can use bcp to transfer a native or character format file from SQL Server 4.2 into a SQL Server 6.0 table of the same definition. You can also transfer in the other direction, but if you are bulk copying a table with the new SQL Server 6.0 datatypes into a SQL Server 4.2 table, you must use character format bcp. The destination table would use only SQL Server 4.2 datatypes. Identity column values and the identity property are not transferred.

You can use SQL Transfer Manager to transfer objects and data between SQL Server version 4.2 and SQL Server version 6.0. When moving objects data from SQL Server 4.2 to SQL Server 6.0, some stored procedures or views may contain Transact-SQL statements that are no longer accepted in version 6.0, and some 4.2 object names may now be reserved words in 6.0. In these cases, the transfer will fail for these objects and will not complete correctly for objects that depend on them. For more information, see the compatibility information in the Microsoft SQL Server Transact-SQL Reference.

When using SQL Transfer Manager to transfer objects and data from SQL Server 6.0 to SQL Server 4.2, you cannot include 6.0 specific datatypes in the source objects, and 6.0-specific schema additions such as identity columns and declarative referential integrity will not be included in the transfer.

Note For a list of new SQL Server 6.0 keywords and for other information about language, statement, query, and other compatibility issues between SQL Server 6.0 and SQL Server 4.2 databases, see the compatibility information in the Microsoft SQL Server Transact-SQL Reference.