Universal Data Link (.udl) Files
|This is one of those tools that ends up at the bottom of your toolbox, but you never forget once you’ve used it to get out of a jam. I use them for 2 reasons:
Quick Connectivity Verification
- Right click on the desktop
- New > Text Document
- The name doesn’t matter, but change the extension to .udl, and the new icon should look like:
- Opening the file allows you to verify that you can connect to the specified database
Connection String Syntax
- After successfully connecting to a database, change the extension back to .txt
- Open the .txt file, and notice that you know have the connection string syntax for the connection that you just tested.