• Thanks for the reply. I did find the soultion. The allow_inprocess option in the properties dialogue box for the OLEDB provider should be checked. I didn't completely understand for what this option is meant for but by trial and error, I found that if I uncheck this option, queries against the linked server on the server machine are not fetching the data throwing the above mentioned error. If I check this option (sometimes need to restart the sql server) queries against the linked server on the server machine work fine. Another thing I found while playing with this option is that this setting doesn't effect the sql server on 32 bit machines but only for 64 bit machines.

    To answer your question above I do connect with the same login and the ssms is ran as admin. I am absolutely positive that allow_inprocess is the culprit (unless there is a bug) and now everything works fine for me.

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    If I can answer a question then anyone can answer it..trying to reverse the logic.. :hehe: