>This can be solved by composing the connection string from user's local settings... i.e. the driver name should then be something that is set for each user. Which is a hassle, of course, as it's more work and more reasons why it would work perfectly on all boxes but one... Even worse, it's a setting you may not need to touch for years, and then it would just stop working.
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>Maybe a way out of this would be to have a file DSN, which is simply a connection string in a text file, and the app would just read it once and use it thereafter. Then the network guy would be in charge of maintaining it.

The problem I had was these were a bunch of tech service staff who had various versions of the Oracle client installed. One Oracle driver uses a server parameter of "SERVER=" and another would have to use "DBQ=" not to mention the differing names if the drivers. So trying to use a generic string and determine which driver used DBQ and which used SERVER was a freaking nightmare. So I just went with a mandatory DSN name and let them be responsible for maintaining there own connection name.