Before you all start, I know, MS Access is pants and I should be using a "real" database. And I shall, once the "proof of concept" stage is passed and I can migrate the existing data over to one. But for now I'm stuck with it. Right, that over, here's my plea: I'm trying to create a connection object to a MS Access 97 database. I've installed the ODBC DA product but I cannot get my connection to actually connect. The error I get is, "invalid connection string: project," (project is the DSN name). According to the docs that come with the ODBC-DA, there's usually no need for a connection string and accordingly I have left it blank; I presume that the DA is defaulting to connecting using the DSN name as its string. The database has no security settings that might limit access. What's going wrong? Help! ---------------------- Andy Gates, Learning and Research Technology Andy.Gates@bristol.ac.uk - ICQ#74362415