Here is the situation: I have a Server 2008 box that is trying to connect to a Sql Server 2005 instance. Connections from websites running in the context of IIS work fine to the Sql Server machine using Sql Server authentication. Rockin'. However, using the same connection string, I cannot get a windows service on the same box to communicate with the Sql Server. Nor can I get management studio to connect from the same box. IIS great, other options no so much. For grins I have tried monkeying with the user accounts in the IIS app pools to match that of the service to get the sites to break and that hasn't worked, so it doesn't appear to be a user account issue. Since this is happening with two different programs and not with IIS, I'm assuming there is something shut down on the Sql Server that needs to allow non-IIS connecting things to communicate, but I have no idea what that would be. Any help would be appreciated.