Hi Paul
I am going to try this one last time and if you still think I am using old
stuff than I will no longer bother you.
I have one develope machine on that machine I have installed Microsoft SQL
Server 2000 (personal edition), Visual Studio 2008.
All I want to do is down load is the Country from the Customers table in the
Northwind database into a ComboBox. The ComboBox is on a Form in a Smart
Device Project in Visual Studio 2008.
(Opened Visual Studio 2008 clicked on Create Project. New Project window
opens I clicked on Smart Device and then choose Smart Device Project and .Net
Framework 3.5.)
In the Form1_Load I have this code:

Dim sConnection As String = "Data Source=(local);Initial
Catalog=Northwind;User ID=csInfo;Password=csInfo;"
       Dim sSQL As String = "SELECT DISTINCT Country FROM Customers ORDER
BY Country"
       Dim comm As SqlCommand = New SqlCommand(sSQL, New
SqlConnection(sConnection))
       Dim dr As SqlDataReader = Nothing
       Try
           comm.Connection.Open()
           dr = comm.ExecuteReader

           While dr.Read
               cboCountries.Items.Add(dr(0))

           End While
       Catch ex As Exception
           MessageBox.Show(ex.Message)
           Return
       End Try
       dr.Close()
       comm.Connection.Close()
   End Sub

I run this and get the "Can't find Server or Access Denied".
Like I said I made sure port 1433 is being used, I changed the name of the
server in the code to the IP address  and turned off both Firerwalls that are
on my computer.
If I run the exact same code in a regular projcet (Not a Smart Device
Project) it runs fine.
Again sorry if this should be in another form but you say that SQL Server
2000 is old but I read nothing that Visual Studio 2008 does not work with SQL
Server 2000. My web connections and desktop project connections to SQL Server
2000's databases. It's just the Smart Device.
Any ideas?
Thanks for all your help.
Matt