Question

I’m running Visual Studio Developer Preview 2011 on a Windows 7 x64 machine.

I’m a beginning to learn C# and am having difficulties connecting to a database. I created a database with MS Access and created a connection by using the Connect to a Database option.

Here is the connection string

Provider=Microsoft.Jet.OLEDB.4.0;Data Source=C:\Users\USER\Documents\BlankDB.mdb

I am following this tutorial

I added the variable masterConnectionString to the Project Settings and initialized it with the value of the connection string.

The program compiles but at run-time I get the following error

A first chance exception of type ‘System.ArgumentException’ occurred in System.Data.dll

Additional information: Keyword not supported: ‘provider’. After this the program terminates.

If I remove the provider part from the string the following exception is thrown.

Additional information:
A network-related or instance-specific error occurred while establishing a connection to SQL Server.
The server was not found or was not accessible.
Verify that the instance name is correct and that SQL Server is configured to allow remote connections.
(provider: SQL Network Interfaces, error: 26 – Error Locating Server/Instance Specified)

I have been trying for sometime now and this is really frustrating. Is there some other easier method of connecting to databases in C# ? Is it possible to create a SQL Server database from within Visual Studio?

Here is the code that I use to connect to the data base.

 static void TryCreateTable()
        {
            using (SqlConnection con = new SqlConnection(DogsDB.Properties.Settings.Default.BlankDBConnectionString))
            {
                con.Open();
                try
                {
                    using (SqlCommand command = new SqlCommand("CREATE TABLE Dogs1 (Weight INT, Name TEXT, Breed TEXT)", con))
                    {
                        command.ExecuteNonQuery();
                    }
                }
                catch
                {
                    Console.WriteLine("Table couldn't be created.");
                }
            }
        }

Answer 1

That’s an OleDB connection string, not a SQL Server connection string.
You need to use it with an OleDbConnection.

If you want to use SQL Server rather than Access, you can create a database using SQL Server Management Studio or VS’s Server Explorer.
You can then connect to it using a SQL Server connection string.

You can see sample connection strings here.