Please forgive my inexperience & thank you for reading this...
1) I understood the concept of ASP 1.1 web apps being directly connected to database hosted on shared server, BUT 2005 isnt billed to work that way, defaulting to a sql2005 file located in APPS folder that's housed directly in Web directory. HOW DO YOU SET UP A VS2005 APP TO DEFAULT TO USING A REMOTE SERVER LIKE HOSTMYSITE HAS???

2) HOW DO YOU GET THE AUTOMATICALLY GENERATED ASPNET MEMBERSHIP DATABASE TO WORK? I saw a prior post with no replies

Any help or reference is GREATLY appreciated! THanks.

All you need is a simple connection string placed in your .NET code. For example, connectionstrings.com provides a great list of valid ways to connect to a SQL 2005 database using .NET:

For brevity I copied only one:


* Connect via an IP address:
"Data Source=190.190.200.100,1433;Network Library=DBMSSOCN;Initial Catalog=pubs;User ID=sa;Password=asdasd;"

(DBMSSOCN=TCP/IP instead of Named Pipes, at the end of the Data Source is the port to use (1433 is the default))


After you've assigned your string to a variable, use it like this:

SqlConnection conn = new SqlConnection(myConnectionString);

conn.Open();

doSomething();

conn.Close();