Charles,
This list of actions here is very valuable. I have never seen it all put
together before. I took all of these steps and some things needed changing.
After it all, I can now remotely connect. I did find that there is no
telnet on my Vista Ultimate machine - the command was unknown.

In asp.net applications it has been a common practice to have asp.net be the
user of the database as it did not require a password in the connection
string. On server2003 it's called nt authority\network service and on xp
asp.net. However now that we can easily encrypt the connection strings in
the web.config files there is no reason I know of to continue that practice.
From now on I will likely use sql server authentication so I won't care what
operating system the database is on.

You have been a great . Thanks so much for your time and attention.
--
Regards,
Gary Blakely
Dean Blakely & Associates
www.deanblakely.com
"Charles Wang[MSFT]" <changliw@online.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:Nnro218jIHA.7148@TK2MSFTNGHUB02.phx.gbl...
> Hi Gary,
> There are many factors which would cause the connection error. Look at
> your
> issue, I recommend that you first check the following conditions and let
> us
> know the results:
> 1. Check if remote connections for both TCP/IP and Named Pipes is enabled
> Click Start->All Programs->Microsoft SQL Server 2005->Configuration
> Tools->SQL Server Surface Area Configuration->Surface Area Configuration
> for Services and Connections, expand <instance name>->Database Engine and
> select Remote Connections, then you can find "Local and remote
> connections"
> at the right pane, select "Using both TCP/IP and named pipes" if it is not
> selected.
>
> 2. Check if the listening port of your SQL Server instance is blocked.
> Click Start->All Programs->Microsoft SQL Server 2005->Configuration
> Tools-> SQL Server Configuration Manager->SQL Server 2005 Network
> Configuration->Protocols for <instance name>, ensure that the TCP/IP
> protocol and Named Pipes protocol are enabled, then double click the
> TCP/IP
> protocol, switch to the IP Addresses tab, and you can find the in use TCP
> port at the bottom of the IPAll section.
> Then run firewall.cpl from command line to see if the TCP port is added
> to the Exceptions list.
>
> 3. Check if you can telnet to your SQL Server 2005 listening TCP port from
> your client machine.
> Assume that the TCP port is 1433, you can run "telnet <remote server
> name> 1433" to see if you can connect to the endpoint.
>
> 4. Check if the SQL Browser services is started
> Run Services.msc from command line to see if SQL Browser Services is
> started. If not, start it and open your firewall to add the program
> (sqlbrowser.exe) to the Exceptions list.
>
> 5. Check if you can manually connect to your SQL Server instance via a SQL
> login.
> To do this, you may first set your SQL Server 2005 Server
> Authentication mode to "SQL Server and Windows Authentication mode" which
> you can find at Server Properties window by right clicking the server name
> and clicking Properties on the shortcut menu in SQL Server Management
> Studio. Then run "osql -S <servername>\<instancename> -U <username>
> -P<password>" from command line.
>
> Also I would like to ask you the following questions:
> 1. What is your connection string in your ASP.NET applicationi?
> 2. I am not familiar with ASP.NET, however could you please let me know
> why
> you set machinename/aspnet and NT AUTHORITY\NETWORK SERVICE as the db
> owner
> of your database?
>
> Look forward to your response. Please feel free to let us know if you have
> any other questions or concerns.
>
> Best regards,
> Charles Wang
> Microsoft Online Community Support
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