Create a data link (UDL) file

1. Right-click on the Windows desktop and navigate to New > Text Document. A new file is created by default (New Text Document.txt).
2. Open the Windows Explorer.
3. On the Tools menu, click Folder Options and select the View tab.
4. Untick the Hide file extensions for known file types check box and click OK.
5. Right-click the text document you created in Step 1 and select Rename.
6. Change the name and extension of the file to "TrendDBTest.udl". When a warning message stating that changes in file extension may turn the file unusable, disregard the warning.

The TrendDBTest.udl file can be stored anywhere on your system or network. You are now ready to connect to your data source.

Testing the connectivity to a SQL server

1. Right-click the TrendDBTest.udl file and choose Properties to open the Data Link Properties dialog box.
2. On the Data Link Properties, select the Provider tab.
3. From the list of OLE DB Provider(s), select Microsoft OLE DB for SQL Server.
4. Click Next to move to the Connection tab.
5. Enter the SQL server’s hostname followed by a backslash (\) (e.g. windows2003server\>InstanceName>) in the first box.
6. Under the section Enter information to log on to the server, select the appropriate radio button:
   • If the SQL server uses Windows authentication, select Use Windows NT Integrated security.
   • If the SQL server uses SQL authentication, select User a specific user name and password.
7. Under the section Select the database on the server, click the drop-down list to view all available databases and select the required database.
8. Click the Test Connection button.
9. If necessary, record any error and forward it to Technical Support. Otherwise, click OK to close the Properties Window.
10. Save the connection settings.