further to the last nugget, even when I connect successfully to the 'master' database all is good if I select the tables that are visible in Databases>System Databases>master>Tables>System Tables folder...

Perry, firstly thank you for taking the time to help.

Bot objects (tables?) are prefixed with dbo

Thanks for the info Perry. The only reason I started down this route was that the caller ID software I am using would not connect to my sql database.

I...

OK, back from Googling betwixt wallpapering. Would I be correct in thinking that I am unable to do this with 2005 express (which is what I am using) as I...

Thanks for the pointer. I will go Googling in the morning.