Glenn,

>I need to enter the following connect string in the app.config file and the xml parser is puking!
>

><add key="VAL\Connection" value="User ID=;DSN=;Cache Authentication=False;Data Source="C:\DEV\VDEV\VALTEST\VAL4\DATA\DATABASE.DBC";Provider="VFPOLEDB.1";Collating Sequence=MACHINE;Mask Password=False;persist security info=False;Mode=Share Deny None;Extended Properties=;Encrypt Password=False" />
>

You need to remove the double quotes from your Source and Provider like this:

<add key="VAL\Connection" value="User ID=;DSN=;Cache Authentication=False;Data Source=C:\DEV\VDEV\VALTEST\VAL4\DATA\DATABASE.DBC;Provider=VFPOLEDB.1;Collating Sequence=MACHINE;Mask Password=False;persist security info=False;Mode=Share Deny None;Extended Properties=;Encrypt Password=False" />

I recommend checking the MM .NET Dev Guide topic "Specifying connection strings in the config file". It has a number of different sample

Regards,