What is provider string when configuring Linked Server

Question

I am configuring a linked server in SQL Server in order to send data from a SQL Server database to a MySQL database. While creating the linked server, in the fields to fill, I am asked the Provider string, unfortunately, I do not know what the Provider String is. Can somebody tell me what the Provider String is and how I can get it?

Here is a screenshot of the window where I need the Provider String

Answer 1

From the documentation Create Linked Servers (SQL Server Database Engine):

Provider string

Type the unique programmatic identifier (PROGID) of the OLE DB provider that corresponds to the data source. For examples of valid provider strings, see sp_addlinkedserver (Transact-SQL).

And then from that linked documentation:

[ @provstr = ] 'provider_string'
Is the OLE DB provider-specific connection string that identifies a unique data source. provider_string is nvarchar(4000), with a default of NULL. provstr is either passed to IDataInitialize or set as the DBPROP_INIT_PROVIDERSTRING property to initialize the OLE DB provider.

...

Remarks

The following table shows the ways that a linked server can be set up for data sources that can be accessed through OLE DB. A linked server can be set up more than one way for a particular data source; there can be more than one row for a data source type. This table also shows the sp_addlinkedserver parameter values to be used for setting up the linked server.

Remote OLE DB data source	OLE DB provider	product_name	provider_name	data_source	location	provider_string	catalog
SQL Server	Microsoft SQL Server Native Client OLE DB Provider	SQL Server 1 (default)
SQL Server	Microsoft SQL Server Native Client OLE DB Provider		SQLNCLI	Network name of SQL Server (for default instance)			Database name (optional)
SQL Server	Microsoft SQL Server Native Client OLE DB Provider		SQLNCLI	servernameinstancename (for specific instance)			Database name (optional)
Oracle, version 8 and later	Oracle Provider for OLE DB	Any	OraOLEDB.Oracle	Alias for the Oracle database
Access/Jet	Microsoft OLE DB Provider for Jet	Any	Microsoft.Jet.OLEDB.4.0	Full path of Jet database file
ODBC data source	Microsoft OLE DB Provider for ODBC	Any	MSDASQL	System DSN of ODBC data source
ODBC data source	Microsoft OLE DB Provider for ODBC	Any	MSDASQL			ODBC connection string
File system	Microsoft OLE DB Provider for Indexing Service	Any	MSIDXS	Indexing Service catalog name
Microsoft Excel Spreadsheet	Microsoft OLE DB Provider for Jet	Any	Microsoft.Jet.OLEDB.4.0	Full path of Excel file		Excel 5.0
IBM DB2 Database	Microsoft OLE DB Provider for DB2	Any	DB2OLEDB			See Microsoft OLE DB Provider for DB2 documentation.	Catalog name of DB2