Marc,

>Thank you for your extensive answer. I had "browsed" through your blog, but did not get to the links that you pointed me to here. When I grow up, I want to master this material, but at this stage, my c# reading is shaky at best and my vfp->.net metamorphosis is far from completed (but believe me, I'm working on it).

You're welcome. Hang in there, it'll all sink in eventually ... when you grow up. <g>

>My reading of the connection string from a local "Ini" kind of a text file is just for configuration purposes. In production, the path to the db might be different from the one in the development environment. (I am working on an access db for the time being, but when I grow up ...).

But that's my point ... in production, you'd simply change the connection string in the < connectionStrings > section of the config file. There's no need for a separate "ini" kind of file. The config file takes the place of that.

~~Bonnie