I have a .NET 2.0 desktop application that connects to a SQL Server 2005
database located on a Windows 2003 box.  If I run this application from a
Windows XP workstation, the connection shows up under Process Info in the
SQL Server 2005 Server Management Studio's Activity Monitor.  If I run this
same application from a Windows 98 workstation, the application connects to
the database and runs just fine, but the connection never shows up in the
Activity Monitor.

Why doesn't the Windows 98 connection show up?  Is there anything I can do
to make it show up?

Thanks in advance,
--Rob Roberts

Rob Roberts (robrRemoveT***@AndThisToo.pcisys.net) writes:
Have you tried running sp_who2 and tried to spot any trace from the
Win98 connection? Just don't look for the hostname, but also for other
things that may be typical for the application, as the problem could
be that the hostname is not set properly.

I just tried it, and sp_who2 does show the Windows 98 connection.  The
hostname shows up as it should.  In fact, if I run the application from
Windows XP and the Windows 98 workstations at the same time, sp_who2 shows
identical information for both connections except for the hostname and
LastBatch date/time.

It's weird that it doesn't show up in the SQL Server 2005 Server Management
Studio's Activity Monitor.  Seems like a bug in Activity Monitor.  But now I
know that I can use sp_who or sp_who2 to get the information that I'm
looking for.  Thanks for the tip!

--Rob Roberts

Rob Roberts (robrRemoveT***@AndThisToo.pcisys.net) writes:
Interesting. I traced the Activity Monitor, but I did not find that many
sources for errors. There is some paging going on, but I doubt that is the
issue.

Out of curiousity if you do:

   SELECT * FROM master.dbo.sysprocesses ORDER BY spid
   SELECT * FROM sys.dm_exec_sessions ORDER BY session_id

are there any differences with regards to the connections from Windows 98?

Erland,

It actually looks like what's going on is that when the .NET desktop
application is being run from the Windows XP workstation, the connection to
the SQL Server is being held open, but when it's run from the Windows 98
workstation it's being opened and then immediately closed.

I just tried running sp_who2 and found that the Windows 98 connection wasn't
showing up.  With some experimentation I found that it would show up if I
ran it immediately after doing something in the app that started a SQL query
(like running a report), but the timing had to be just right to catch it.
The connection seems to be open for only a second or so.  But when running
the same application on the Windows XP workstation, the connection continues
to show up for a much longer period of time.

It turns out that this is the same thing that was happening with the SQL
Server Management Studio's Activity Monitor.  It *does* show the Windows 98
connection, but only if it is refreshed at exactly the right time.  Wait a
second too long and it's gone, as opposed to the Windows XP connection which
continues to show up for several minutes after it has accessed the database.

--Rob Roberts

Hi

Check in ODBC Data Sources on the Windows 98 Machine if connection pooling
is enabled for the SQL Server Driver. It is automatically enabled on Windows
2000 and XP, but I can't remember if Windows 98 had it on by default. With
connection polling set on the client, the connection remains open for 60
seconds after the application closes it. So, if the some application on the
machine connects to the same SQL Server, using the same credentials, the
connection is re-used, improving connection establishment performance.

MDAC 2.81sp1 is the latest data access stack for Windows 98.
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=78cac895-efc2-4f8e-a9e0-3a1afbd5922e&displaylang=en

Regards
Show quoteHide quote

Mike,

ODBC Data Sources on the Windows 98 machine shows that connection pooling is
enabled, with a "Pool Timeout" value of 60.

MDAC 2.8s1 is installed on the Windows 98 machine, but I'm not sure if it's
the same one as your link points to.  I notice that on that page is says
that the supported operating systems are Windows 2000, Windows 98, Windows
ME, and Windows NT.

The version of MDAC 2.8sp1 that I installed on the Windows 98 machine came
from this page:
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=6C050FE3-C795-4B7D-B037-185D0506396C&displaylang=en.
It lists the supported operating systems as Windows 2000, Windows 98,
Windows ME, Windows NT, and Windows XP.  Is there a difference between the
two versions?

If I run the Microsoft MDAC Component Checker on the Windows 98 machine, it
says the MDAC version is "MDAC 2.8 SP1 ON WINDOWS XP SP2".  It says the same
thing if I run it on the Windows XP machine.  But I thought it was kind of
odd that the version mentions Windows XP SP2 when it's run on the Windows 98
machine.

I tried running the Component Checker on the Windows 98 machine before I
installed MDAC 2.8sp1, and it said the MDAC version was "UNKNOWN".  But even
so it had no problem connecting to the SQL Server 2005 database from the
..NET 2.0 desktop application.  I also have a Delphi (Win32, not .NET)
application which also had no problem connecting to the database.  After
installing MDAC 2.8sp1, the .NET application still connected to the database
just fine, but the Delphi application wouldn't.  To get the Delphi
application working again I had to go into ODBC Data Sources and tweak some
settings for the SQL Server driver.

Should I have installed the other MDAC 2.8sp1 on the Windows 98 machine
instead of the one I ended up using?  It seems strange that Microsoft has
two different MDAC 2.8 sp1's, one of which says it supports Windows XP and
the other one doesn't.  Confusing...

Thanks for your help!

--Rob Roberts

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