GSquared (4/29/2009)
Most likely, a change in the domain.
Agreed. Investigating to see if any updates might have been pushed to the workstations.
Otherwise, something changed in the DNS files
What would have changed them? The users didn't. They need the help desk to make the changes.
or the server.
What could have changed on the server to affect multiple users DSN entries? Since these are "System" DSNs, all of the settings are stored in the user's registry... and the user's can't get to that except through the "Data Sources (ODBC)" control panel applet.
I just got back from visiting the users. They all share an access "program" (though only one can be in it at a time). They are using linked tables with the DSN. This needs for all of the users to have the same named DSN, with the same properties. Some of the users had a different name (space vs. underscore). However, several also had their "Change the default database to:" unchecked, and those had the "master" database selected (though dimmed).
Once the DSNs are changed to be consistent, then there doesn't appear to be any problems.
But, with many users, this is a PIA. I'm just looking for ways that all of these user's settings could have been altered.
Wayne
Microsoft Certified Master: SQL Server 2008
Author - SQL Server T-SQL Recipes