Morning folks. This shouldn't be difficult, but as usual, it is. Creating a link between an Oracle DB and a Sql server DB. 1) I setup the System DSN and tested it. Works 2) Modified the TNSNAMES.ORA file - check 3) Modified the Listener file and reloaded - check 4) TNSping of the TNSnames entry successful - check 5) Created the inithsodbc.ora file - check 6) created a dblink putting the username/password in "" and the odbc service in ' ' - check 7) link created successfully - check 8) select * from table@linkname -ERROR Got the error back ORA-28500: connection from ORACLE to a non-Oracle system returned this message: [Generic Connectivity Using ODBC][Microsoft][ODBC SQL Server Driver][SQL Server]Cannot open database "test" requested by the login. The login failed. (SQL State: 37000; SQL Code: 4060) ORA-02063: preceding 2 lines from BOBLINK Dropped the link and recreated it using just a junk username and password. Got the same error. Metalink has gone to sleep on me. I'm missing something simple here but not sure what it is. Do I have to use a username with DBA privs on the sql server? Thanks Bob -- //www.freelists.org/webpage/oracle-l