Thanks for your reply.

I'm not sure if I've implemented your example properly, but here is what I tried for the connection string (this is VB code in ASP.Net)...

strConnection = "SQLOLEDB;Data Source=machinename\sqlexpress;Initial Catalog=dbname;User Id=****;Password=****;"

And I get this error again...

An OLE DB Provider was not specified in the ConnectionString. An example would be, 'Provider=SQLOLEDB;'.