I'm still trying things for this and here's what I've come up with where the ???'s are above:

Protected Const SQL_CONNECTION_STRING As String = _
"Provider=Microsoft.Jet.OLEDB.4.0;Data Source=TestBase.mdb;User Id=admin;Password=;"

Also, I've put in "Microsoft.Jet.OLEDB.4.0" on the ADO's connectionstring property. It runs now and gives me an SQL error that says it cannot find the file at (then shows the path). TestBase (the database) is in the folder that the path on the error message specifies. I tried putting the database right on the desktop and adding a new datasource to that destination, but it still looks along the old path (which never worked anyway). One last thought, I've noticed that the Microsoft Access databases I've created have the file extension .accdb rather than .mdb. However, everywhere I've found examples with code .mdb is used by the programmer. Thanks for reading this, and thanks in advance if you are able to help :-)

Russ