Hi Gray

>I just installed the servive pack 3 for visual studio. Now I am unable to connect to the sql 6.5 servers When I try I get an error message stating:
>
>A connection could not be established to SQL -[DB Library] Unable to connect: SQL server is unavailable or does not exist.
>
>Any help would be appreciated.

Updates to SQL Server and Visual Database Tools

You must download SQL Server Service Pack 2 for working with Visual Database Tools and/or Visual InterDev.

The SQL Server Service Pack 2 is available at: http://backoffice.microsoft.com/downtrial/moreinfo/sqlsp.asp

SQL Server Service Pack 2 fixes several issues with the relational engine of Visual Database Tools including:

· A query with two or more RIGHT/LEFT OUTER JOIN clauses resulted in a syntax error. Now they parse correctly and generate the correct result.

· Some "complex" queries and views with five or more tables would stop the server. This resulted in a TDS Protocol error and a subsequent stop of Visual Studio. This issue has been corrected.

Visual Database Tools/Visual InterDev still requires, as a minimum, SQL Server Service Pack 1, but installing SQL Server Service Pack 2 is recommended.

The rest of this can be found at:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/vstudio/sp/vs97/readme.asp

I hope this is at least relavent.