You're running into issues because:
Arthur sat in the dim glow of his home office, the only light in the room coming from a monitor displaying the distinct glass-blue taskbar of Windows 7. On his desk lay an old accounting ledger and a floppy disk that felt like a relic from another era. "Come on, Arthur," he muttered, "just one more connection."
: MySQL provides a dedicated 32-bit driver for its community users. You can find the latest version on the MySQL Download Page . odbc driver for windows 7 32 bit free download
Microsoft officially recommends using the . While newer versions exist, version 17 offers good compatibility with Windows 7.
Since your search is specifically for , you will almost certainly need the 32-bit ODBC Driver . You're running into issues because: Arthur sat in
— Microsoft and most vendors no longer list Windows 7 as a supported OS on their download pages. Drivers still work but are buried in "older downloads" sections.
: For those using Firebird databases, a dedicated 32-bit Full Install is available for legacy versions like 2.5 and newer. You can find the latest version on the MySQL Download Page
Once you have downloaded and installed the driver, you should verify it is working correctly.
— Most new drivers are 64-bit only. Vendors stopped producing 32-bit versions around 2018–2020.
I understand you're looking for a free ODBC driver for , and it sounds like you may have already hit some dead ends. Let me give you the short, practical answer first, then the longer story.
If your application connects to a MySQL or MariaDB database, you need the MySQL Connector/ODBC.