Why am I receiving ODBC/Database connection using Microsoft SQL Server

I get the following errors when testing our ODBC/Database connection using Microsoft SQL Server 2000/2005, the errors are also logged to the Application event log: OdbcExpandError:[08001][Microsoft][ODBC SQL server Driver][Shared Memory]SQL Server does not exist or access denied. (17) at SQLConnect and OdbcExpandError:[08001][Microsoft][ODBC SQL server Driver][Shared Memory]SQL Server does not exist or access denied. (17) at SQLConnect.

This error is usually logged when you are pointing a connection string to an instance of SQL Server that does not have the EventSentry database configured correctly.

For example, if you have two or more instances running on a given SQL Server 2000 or SQL Server 2005 (Express), then you will need to make sure that you are pointing the connection string to the correct instance.

You can usually point to the correct instance by specifying

SERVERNAME\INSTANCE

instead of just specifying the server name, or by specifying the TCP port that is being used by the instance containing the EventSentry database (see below for more information).

If you are receiving this error from a system that is not a member of your domain, it may be because the SERVERNAME cannot be resolved by that system. In this case you may need to use the FQDN for that system or the IP address for resolution.