Hi,

Something strange happened and I didnt find any answer yet:

Situation:
* I have a VisualStudio2005 Standard installation.
* I started a VB winforms project using a Access DB ... everything was
working fine...

What happened:
* I installed the VisualStudio2008 Beta version for testing in
parallel ...
* After testing some days, I deleted VS2008 again...

The Problem:
* since then, I cannot setup new connections to ACCESS databases
(error: error occurred while processing the local data file: Object
reference not set to an instance of an object)
* Setting up a connection in the datasources pane results does not
work either: when choosing the database, I can choose "Access..."
under new connection, but then get a window asking for connection
string instead of the .mdb file (as it did before, and as it is
described in the Microsoft's "How to:"
* The DatasetDesigner does not work any longer as well: when trying to
append a new query to a table adapter i get the error: cannot find the
Connnectionstring... but the constring is there, and when I compile
the project it works...

What I did:
* I tried a new user, a new project = same problem
* I desinstalled VS2005 and all associated components, .NET
frameworks, MS SQL Server, etc....
* deleted all Visual Studio folders that I could find...
* cleaned the registry....
* restarted
* installed everything anew
= same problem (even my old settings were still there (where are they
saved?)

.... by now I did the deinstall/reinstall 3 times = problem remains

Similiar problems have been reported here:
* http://www.thescripts.com/forum/thread529997.html
*
http://groups.google.de/group/micros...f95dbc 30cb48
* http://www.imasters.com.br/artigo/50...e_detailsview/
(at the very last post)

Yet, there is no solution except reinstalling the complete maschine...
To me it rather sounds like a shared settings/configuration file, a
versioning problem or something similiar as here (http://
support.microsoft.com/kb/940229)

ANY SUGGESTIONS, SOLUTIONS?
Thanks a lot ...
/Dirk