My dad built an MS Access Database to do property management. Now he wants to share it with other users over the internet. So I got a hosted SQL Server account at Network Solutions. Now I'm trying to connect the Access 2003 client to a test SQL database using these guidelines from MS:
http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/access/HP052745861033.aspx
However, the error message I get is "Connection Failed because of an error initializing the provider. Server does not exist or access is denied".
I've run the MSComponentChecker to make sure I have MDAC 2.7 or above. Mine is 2.8 SP1 on XP.
After a little more research, I figured it out.
In MS Access 2003, you have to enter the server name in this format:
serverName\instanceName,portNumber
This is a BackSlash, not a ForwardSlash. Thank you MS. Not sure why I had to specify the port number when it's the default.
Special thanks to this post: http://dbaspot.com/forums/sqlserver-server/251219-error-connecting-remote-server.html
It should be noted that you can't do much design work in Access 2003 once you are connected. So I needed to upgrade to 2007 to change the SQL schema. Hopefully, 2003 users will still be able to connect and use the app.