i though i should include this picture to give a good view of the problem. you will see that under the list of sql servers, it lists spb-svr16 twice. The one in lower case is not actually the server name but the name used to refer to the data source when i had created the odbc connection earlier. i am trying to remove the one in lower case so that i can have only one spb-svr16, which i believe will solve my problem. attached is the picture.

thanks again