The Microsoft Data Access Components (MDAC) provide the Data Link Properties dialog box as the common user interface for specifying connection information to a data provider on Windows 2000 and later operating systems. You can use the Data Link Properties dialog box to save connection information in a universal data link (.udl) file.
To create a Universal Data Link (.udl) file
1. Open
Windows Explorer.
2. Select the folder in which you want to store the
.udl file.
3. If you are running Windows 2000 or later, select
New on the
File menu, and choose
Text Document.
4. A new file named
New Text Document.txt appears in the directory. Rename this file, removing all spaces and changing its file extension to
.udl.
Note A warning that changing file extensions can cause files to become unusable might appear. Disregard it.
To configure a universal data link (.udl) file
1. Double-click the universal data link (.udl) file. The
Data Link Properties dialog box opens, displaying the following tabs:
Provider,
Connection,
Advanced, and
All. Choose
Next to navigate from tab to tab.
2. On the
Provider tab, select
PostgreSQL Native Provider.
3. On the
Connection tab, enter the
Data Source name,
User name,
Password, and
Initial catalog.
4. Use the
Advanced tab to view and set other initialization properties for your database.
5. Use the
All tab to review and edit all OLE DB initialization properties available for PGNP.
6. Choose
OK to save the connection string to the Universal Data Link (
.udl) file.
Data Link File Format
The first two lines of a universal data link (.udl) file must have exactly this content:
Code:
[oledb]
; Everything after this line is an OLE DB initstring
After these required lines, the remainder of the .udl file consists of a connection string written in the same format used when opening a database from programming code. The following listing gives the complete text of a .udl file that uses the PGNP OLEDB provider for PostgreSQL to open the
postgres database using User name
postgres and Password
12345.
Code:
[oledb]
; Everything after this line is an OLE DB initstring
Provider=PGNP.1;Password=12345;Persist Security Info=True;User ID=postgres;Initial Catalog=postgres;Data Source=localhost;Extended Properties=""
