Hi Mark,

in addition to what all the other folks have suggested (all of which are on my list), try this:

Open notepad on the app machine (not the sql server) and attempt to save a .txt file to somewhere (out of the way) on the SQL Server. If you can't, you probably don't have permissions to access that server from the app machine (app server or user machine). If that's the case, IT can solve it in a number of ways, including a special user which you use to run the app. In theory the internal security could limit access to just the IP port you need, but in fact entire user access is the most usual option available. Most of the time IT ends up creating a special group that can access the server, and adding it to the users who need to use your app.

Hank

>Hi all,
>
>I've cmoe across a weird situation that I can't get around. A customer has an SQL instance on a server and we want to start using it. Standard enough so far and I wrote a small prg that connect to the SQL server and inserts a row. On the Server it works no problem, with both windows authentication and SQL authentication in the connection string.
>The problem is that on the network if I try to run this simple program it fails. The program does not make a connection to the server. I have tried opening ports on the server and the client pc but no difference. I have also tried turning off the AV but no difference. I've gotten it to the point where I can telnet to the server on port 1433 but still the connection fails. Initially the telnet was failing as well but I changed the dynamic port in the SQL configuration.
>On a different client PC i installed sql server 2008 and then was able to use my program to insert into the SQL database on the server, but I can't go installing SQL on every client PC.
>Server is Win server 2008R2 and SQL server 2008. There were 3 instances of SQL running, 2 have now been uninstalled as they are no longer used.
>Any idea on what to try next or any tool to use? I've googled and confirmed all the regular settings are correct.
>
>~M