Dear MS Access Expert,

I am currently running MSDE 2000 SQL Server version on my Windows XP.

It seems to be working fine because my ADP database can connect to it.

However, when I try to create and ODBC connection I hit a road block.

Nothing appears in my "Which SQL server do you want to connect to?:" combo box. Please see the attachment for clarification.


I Followed the instructions in the following internet guide.

http://www.aspfree.com/c/a/Microsoft-Access/Importing-Data-into-MS-Access-with-ODBC/3/

Thank you for your help.

As an added bonus, how can I ODBC link to Northwind.mdf and a pubs.mdf that ships with Access 2003.

Again much thanks

Sometimes when using MSDE the database and instance will not show up. If you didn't use a named instance you should be able to TYPE in

(local)\YourDatabaseName

or

Local\YourDatabaseName

(been a while since I've used MSDE but one of those should do it).

I always installed my MSDE instances as named instances by using a setup.ini file in the same directory as the setup.exe for MSDE.

Bob,

It is (local)\YourDatabaseName. Also with MSDE I had to choose Windows NT authentication even when running on Windows XP.

I was able to connect to NorthwindCS.mdf using ADP but still couldn't get it to work with ODBC links using MDB Access 2003 format.

Attached is the error message.

Thanks for your help.

Peter.