Thank's Sergey, still get the same error.
Sadly someone else is in-charge of the box itself so I can physically see what's going on there.

I thought maybe sql didn't allow remote logins to default instances.

Thanks

>The default instance has the same name as the Windows server it runs on. You would use "ServerName".
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>>I have never tried to connect to a local / default instance of sql server remotely? I know about making sure it is configured to allow remote uses, but I always name my instances so am not familiar with this. This is ok is it not? I've got "\\ServerName\(local)" in my connection string but it comes back with error 87 - fails to make the connection.