Creating a data link (UDL) file and testing connectivity to a SQL server

Create the data link (UDL) file

1.     Right-click the Windows desktop, point to New, and then click Text Document. A new file is created by default (New Text Document.txt).

2.     Open Windows Explorer, and on the Tools menu, click Folder Options. On the View tab, clear the Hide file extensions for known file types check box and then click OK.

3.     Right-click the Text Document you created in step 1, choose Rename, and then change the name and extension of the file to: DBTest.udl

4.     A warning might appear, explaining that changing file extensions could cause files to become unusable. Disregard this warning.

5.     You can store the (DBTest.udl) file anywhere on your system.

6.     Double-click the (DBTest.udl) file or you can optionally right-click it, and then click Properties. This opens the Data Link Properties dialog box. You are now ready to connect to your data source.

Testing connectivity to a SQL server

1.     When you have opened the data link properties select the Provider tab.

2.     From the list of OLE DB Provider(s) select ‘Microsoft OLE DB for SQL Server’.

3.     Click the next button to move to the Connection tab.

4.     Enter the SQL server’s hostname followed by a backslash (\) in the first box. E.g. windows2003server\DBS

5.     Under ‘Enter information to log on to the server’ select one of the radio buttons...

o    ‘Use Windows NT Integrated security’ if the SQL server uses Windows authentication 

o    ‘User a specific user name and password’ if the SQL server uses SQL authentication.

6.     Under ‘Select the database on the server’ click on the drop down list to view the databases that are available.

7.     Select the require database and click the ‘Test Connection’ button.

8.     If necessary record any error seen and forward to technical support. Otherwise click OK to close the properties window and save the connection settings.