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My question is very similar to the one here except pertaining to a Windows tool. I am also referencing this table and what I found here with a Google search. However, I have no idea which tool would best meet my (very basic) purposes.

I am currently using Excel with a basic ODBC connection string to query my database at work. However, Excel is pretty memory-heavy and a basic query tends to throw my computer into a 30 second stall-a-thon.

Is there a free tool out there that is light-weight and can serve the same purpose when provided an ODBC connection and a SQL query?

Also would prefer that it easily copies over to a spreadsheet as needed.

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One other thing: I do not need this tool to edit data, only to query. Read-only capability is great. – NoCatharsis Apr 15 '10 at 2:58
What database are you going to connect to ? – Sathya♦ Apr 15 '10 at 3:20
It's very old, like 10-15 years I believe. Something Unix-based perhaps? Anyway, I know that I just have a simple ODBC connection string to connect me so I think any generic ODBC query tool would work. Correct me if I'm wrong. Thanks. – NoCatharsis Apr 15 '10 at 3:58
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If you still ultimately want to copy the data into a spreadsheet, is adding the extra tool in your workflow worth the trouble? I would suggest looking at the reason for the poor Excel ODBC import performance. – Mike Fitzpatrick Apr 15 '10 at 5:39
I will talk to IT about that today. I had assumed this was a speed issue because my computer is getting pretty outdated and loading any MS Office app tends to take a lot longer than on my home computer, which has twice as much RAM and a better processor. – NoCatharsis Apr 15 '10 at 13:18
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If Office apps are too heavy for your system, you might try OpenOffice.org. It has a Base module that appears to be an Access clone. It may be a little quicker to open and use and I'm quite certain you could simply copy and paste into Excel (although I haven't done it myself).

I tend to agree with the comment that adding another layer will end up eating any time savings you can achieve. But I also know that waiting for a query to execute can be maddening and saving even a few seconds would be worth it.

So it might be worth the effort to try OpenOffice and see if it isn't better - at least psychologically. Be sure to post back here if you try it and like it.

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OpenOffice Base is awesome and does exactly what I want it to do, plus it's portable and I won't have to be concerned with installing 3rd party software directly on my work machine. Thanks a lot. – NoCatharsis Apr 23 '10 at 16:07
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A late answer (not to mention shameless self-promotion), but I wrote this ODBC Query Tool in response to exactly the same requirement:

ODBC Query Tool homepage

You can also get it from the sourceforge project page.

It is a lightweight, small but very functional query tool. It is free software licensed under the MIT license. It allows to easily export query results into MS Excel or similar software. And, it has no dependencies (other than the appropriate ODBC drivers for your database, of course).

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