Increase your application's flexibility and make the installation simpler by connecting to the database without generating a DSN in the ODBC Data Source Administrator. Instead, use VB code to ...

Windows 7 includes an ODBC manager that lets you connect from your desktop to a SQL server. You create a data source name (DSN) to save database setup information, so you can open a connection to ...

The Connection Properties dialog opens. For my sample ITworld application, I changed the data source to Microsoft SQL Server (SQLClient), and entered the necessary Server, Log On, and database values.

If you just want to get going with a code-first database, you don't even need to define a connection string -- just write your objects.

Figure 2. Successful Azure PowerShell Connection Output. Although this next step might have been set for other reasons, you must have a server firewall rule setup to allow incoming SQL connections ...