>>>>Another possible cause could be that the customer network admin says that "SQL Service is not listening on tcp 1433". How do you set SQL Server to listen to this port?
>>>
>>>It's in the configuration tool, server protocols, rightclick on TCP/IP, check properties - probably under some advanced button or 2nd page. There's also one of the values just above the port, probably line 3 in each port's section, which is blank but needs to be zero if you want this to work (which I googled out when I needed it, and of course can't find again)
>>>
>>>Even better, if the admins frown at the usage of 1433, which every kid knows is the SQL port, try to agree to some other port instead, and activate that port. Then in your connectstring the server section becomes "...;Server=ServerNameHere,12345;" assuming 12345 is the port you opened.
>>
>>What happened is that TCP/IP was not even Enabled in the SQL Configuration. So as soon as I enabled it, the port 1433 started working. Which is the default for SQL. And the problem was resolved. However, I could not find in the configuration setting where I would specify or change the port number. Maybe I was not looking hard enough. Or maybe the SQL Express does not allow for this option. Funny thing is that the DBA didn't make this suggestion (of enabling TCP/IP). She either thought it was so obvious that needed not to be checked. Or simply didn't give it much thought. I am glad this battle is over.
>>Thank you.
>
>Ah... If this was SQL Express, there are some hoops you have to jump through to get it to work as many of the usual configuration items are either unavailable (totally missing, greyed out, or you can set it, but upon returning to screen it's turned off again, etc.). Other potential snags include figuring out how to get to be accessible through a network, or the server name to specify on the client side, etc. It's possible to do -- but Microsoft won't tell you how (at least not directly) -- you'll have to look up the information from various sources on the Internet to find out how.

Microsoft would never hind anything from me <g>.