Universal Data Link (UDL) files

If you have worked with VB or ADODB objects, I am sure you will have used this earlier. Even though we have many ways to keep the connection strings in configuration I still use UDL many times even now.  Keeping connectionstring on configuration is a common requirement but to get that string we can use UDL that  keeps it simple to get the connectionstring right away from the notepad without worrying about format etc.

Here is how I normally do to get the connection string or to test the connection.
·         Open a note pad
·         Save it as “x.udl”
·         Close the notepad
·         Now open the UDL file
·         Configure your connection and save it
·         Open the UDL file in note pad again. Now you get the connectionstring

Simple way to check the connection to servers and helps to debug the connection issues