The CData ADO.NET Provider for Microsoft Access implements two ADO.NET interfaces you can use to retrieve data from Microsoft Access: AccessDataAdapter and AccessDataReader objects. Whereas AccessDataAdapter objects retrieve a single result set of all the data that matches a query, AccessDataReader objects fetch data in subset increments as needed.

Using the AccessDataReader

The AccessDataReader retrieves data faster than the AccessDataAdapter because it can retrieve data in pages. As you read data from the AccessDataReader, it periodically requests the next page of results from the data source, if required. This causes results to be returned at a faster rate. The following example selects all the columns from the Orders table:

C#

string connectionString = "DataSource=C:\\My.accdb";

using (AccessConnection connection = new AccessConnection(connectionString)) {
  AccessCommand cmd = new AccessCommand("SELECT * FROM Orders", connection);
  
  AccessDataReader rdr = cmd.ExecuteReader();

  while (rdr.Read()) {
    Console.WriteLine(String.Format("\t{0} --> \t\t{1}", rdr["ShipName"], rdr["ShipCity"]));
  }
}

VB.NET

Dim connectionString As String = "DataSource=C:\\My.accdb"

Using connection As New AccessConnection(connectionString)
  Dim cmd As New AccessCommand("SELECT * FROM Orders", connection)

  Dim rdr As AccessDataReader = cmd.ExecuteReader()

  While rdr.Read()
    Console.WriteLine([String].Format(vbTab & "{0} --> " & vbTab & vbTab & "{1}", rdr("ShipName"), rdr("ShipCity")))
  End While
End Using