I'm curious as to why would you want to spend £4100 (GBP) for SQL Enterprise edition to run on a £130 desktop operating system (XP)?

It's "SQL Server" not "SQL Desktop"...

Try this:

-- no login name or password are required to connect to the Jet4 ISAM linked server

EXEC sp_droplinkedsrvlogin 'billNotes', NULL

This removes the default mapping that is created by sp_addlinkedserver.

You...

Sorry no, except for dropping and creating.

However, this should work but I don't know the side effects:

EXEC dbo.sp_configure 'show advanced options', 1

GO

RECONFIGURE

GO

EXEC dbo.sp_configure 'allow updates', 1

GO

RECONFIGURE...

This just runs a cursor for you, but you don't have to write it 

EXEC master.dbo.xp_execresultset '

SELECT

        ''GRANT EXECUTE ON dbo.'' + SPECIFIC_NAME + '' TO <role>

FROM

       ...

I'd say separate stored procedures

More chance of compiled plan re-use and definitely easier maintenance

Use "sp_setnetname" to change the "data_source" of the linked server

We don't use actual server names for our linked servers, but use sp_setnetname to keep, for example, the same linked server name...

CREATE TABLE tblFoo (dummycol char(3) NOT NULL)

INSERT tblFoo VALUES (-1)

SELECT dummycol, LEFT(dummycol, 1), SUBSTRING (dummycol, 2, 1) FROM tblFoo

gives

dummycol          

-------- ---- ----

-1       -    1

It's the string "-1" not...

On PC2, have you tried osql -E -S "FRC-GIIT-CIRKUS\MYSQL"

What OS do you have?

If you have XP SP on PC1 and it's windows firewall is enabled, this may block connections to your SQL instance on PC1

Sorry, I've misunderstood your original post.

Can you set up an ODBC connection?

I'll post more in a minute

Assuming that "1161870" is an ID value,

SELECT

    P.ponr,

    P.vartkst AS PolisNrOud,

    M.vartkst AS Maatschappij,

    B.vartkst AS Bedrag,

    O.vartkst AS Overdrachtsdatum

FROM

  (SELECT ponr, vartkst FROM phh030 WHERE (veldc+2)%4 = 0) P

  JOIN...

See http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;224071

This tells you how to shift system dbs...

Thanks.

I didn't say I'd actually done it though!!!

Actually, I wrote one routine that does this on our log shipping server so ensure that login changes are replicated on our standby...

We've centralised like this for 30 SQL Servers, but we duplicated code.

We store the data locally as well as remotely, though

One option is to use a linked server with a...

You can hardcode port numbers.

The first start up wil determine the port number.

For example, in "Security Account Delegation" scenarios (see BOL) you have to use the port number to with "setspn"....