It was preety cool to create connection string like that. I am new to sql server and spent part of the day tring to find a correct connection string. however it is not working for me. It says : [DBNETLIB][ConnectionOpen (Connect()).]SQL Server does not exist or access denied.I am using sql server express 2005 and have installed it in the partition on the server and not on C drive. does this have to do anything with the error I am getting. Also my database is on a different server than my application.