We've been doing some testing on a laptop with multiple users and need to set up some DSNs with a SQL Server back end. After a few failures connecting it was decided it would be simpler to set up a System DSN which would be accessible to all users. We did this using identical credentials as the User DSN that we already knew worked for me. Long story short, this did not work. The Access database would not connect to the SQL Server back end using the System DSN. As a matter of fact, Access couldn't even see the System DSN. We discovered this by trying to manually create a linked table using the new System DSN. We gave it a unique name, and could not find it in the list of Machine Data sources. We are now back to created a new User DSN for each person who logs in to this machine. This is doable and not terribly inconvenient, but I (we) would like to know if it is possible to use System DSNs at all or if Access simply can't do it. If so we won't waste any more time trying.