Nicholas

Hard coding port 1433 resolved the issue.

Many thanks for your replies.

Best wishes

Chris

Seems the firewall is the problem.

With the firewall OFF, you can access the SQL Server 2008 R2 Express via SQL Server authentication.

Yet the script suggested by Microsoft:-

@echo ========= SQL...

Nicholas

Thanks for your reply.

Don't understand 'Check to see if the account you are using for the DSN has permissions on SQL Server.'

Nothing to be found in the SQL Server Error...