Connection String Options

Connection string options can be defined directly in a connection string, or set in the Advanced Properties dialog box in Visual Studio (see "Setting SQL Server Data Provider Connection Options in Server Explorer").

Constructing a Connection String

SQL Server Data Provider Connection String Options lists the connection string options supported by the SQL Server data provider, and describes each option. The options have the form:

option=value

Each connection string option value pair is separated by a semicolon. For example:

"Host=Accounting1;User ID=mike;Password=bogey;Database Name=Accounting"

Notes:

• The spaces in the option names are required.
• All connection string option names are case-insensitive. For example, Password is the same as password. However, the values of some options, such as User ID and Password, may be case-sensitive.

Setting SQL Server Data Provider Connection Options in Server Explorer

See Creating a New Connection in Server Explorer for more information about using Visual Studio to add and modify connections.

To add a connection:

1. Right-click the Data Connections node, and select Add Connection... The Add Data Source window appears.

   

   Do one of the following steps:

   • If the SQL Server data provider is selected, skip to Step 3.
   • If the SQL Server data provider is not selected, click Change. The Change Data Source window appears.

2. Select the SQL Server data provider.

   Do the following steps:

   a. In the Data source list box, select Progress DataDirect.
   b. In the Data provider drop-down list, select Progress DataDirect Connect for ADO.NET SQL Server Data Provider.
   c. If you want to use these selections for other connections, select the Always use this selection check box.
   d. If the Progress DataDirect Connect for ADO.NET SQL Server data provider is not listed in the Data provider drop-down list, use the Visual Studio Provider Integration Tool, located in the DataDirect Connect for ADO.NET program group. The product installation automatically integrates the data providers into Visual Studio. If you install the data providers before installing Visual Studio, or uninstall and reinstall Visual Studio, the DataDirect data providers will not appear in the Data provider drop-down list until you use the Visual Studio Provider Integration Tool.
   d. Click OK. The Add Connection window appears.

3. Select the type of connection that the data provider will use to connect to SQL Server. The connection information you enter appears in the corresponding fields of the Advanced Property window.

   • If you select Standard Connection, select the host name from the drop-down list in the Host field; then, type the port number in the Port field (see Port).
   • If you select Named Instance Connection, type the host name and the SQL Server named instance to which to you want to connect in the Host and Instance fields.

4. Choose the type of login authentication for the connection:

   • Select Use Kerberos Authentication to enable Kerberos authentication. You do not need to enter a User ID or Password.
   • Select Use Windows authentication to use NTLM authentication. You do not need to enter a User ID or Password.
   • Select Use SQL Server Authentication to use the SQL Server UserID/Password authentication. You must enter a SQL Server user ID and password.

5. (Optional) If you want to save the password for the lifetime of the connection instance defined in Server Explorer, select the Save my password check box.

6. (Optional) Enter the name of the database. The value you enter appears in the Database Name field of the Advanced Property window.

7. If you want to change other connection properties, continue to Step 8. Otherwise, click OK and skip to Step 9.

8. Click Advanced... to specify additional provider-specific property values. Then, click OK.

   

   To change the values in the Advanced Properties window, type a value into the field or select a value from a drop-down list. The value that appears in the field below the description of the property is added to the connection string. If you accept the default values, the connection string field remains unchanged. The properties are grouped in the list box in categories. See SQL Server Data Provider Connection String Options for a complete list of the properties and their descriptions.

9. Click Test Connection. At any point during the configuration process, you can click Test Connection to attempt to connect to the data source using the connection properties specified in the Add Connection dialog box.

   • If the data provider can connect, it releases the connection and displays a Test connection succeeded message. Click OK to close the message box and return to the Add Connection window.

   • If the data provider cannot connect because of an incorrect environment or incorrect connection value, it displays an appropriate error message. Click OK to close the message dialog box and return to the Add Connection window.

   • If the data provider requires more information, the connection dialog box is displayed. Enter the required information and click OK to close the connection dialog box and return to the Add Connection window.

     NOTE: If you are configuring alternate servers for use with the connection failover feature, be aware that the Test Connection button tests only the primary server, not the alternate servers.

10. Click OK or Cancel to close the Add Connection window. If you click OK, the values you have specified become the defaults when you connect to the data source. You can change these defaults by using this procedure to reconfigure your data source. You can override these defaults by connecting to the data source using a connection string with alternate values.

Default Values for Connection String Options

The connection string options are described in SQL Server Data Provider Connection String Options. The following table lists the connection string options the Sybase data providers support.

Default Values for SQL Server Data Provider Connection String Options