I started a thread in the sql forum but need more of you brilliant minds to look at it. My db is distributed to a number of users. It began years ago--I began by using mysql connector 5.1 to connect to MySql data. All installations are still running smoothly (with 5.1 installed) and I haven't had a problem until now. I cannot get a new user up and running. Normally, a new user just installs the mysql connector and then is able to run the program. They did that and it fails to connect. Any ideas? One suggestion has been to upgrade the odbc connector. On my own computer I can uninstall 5.1 and install 8.3 driver, but that fails because apparently the old one is still resident in the registry. When I click on the Linked Table Manager, it shows 5.1, not the currently installed 8.3. While I might be able to follow instructions to alter the registry, there's no way all the other users could/would do that. Thanks for taking a look at this.