Thnak you for your quick response.
Your workaround works but I have now hit anther limit the openquery method
only allows fro a 128 char string. This is ok for simple queries but some of
the queries are approx 180 characters.

Thanks...
"Erland Sommarskog" <sommar@algonet.se> wrote in message
news:Xns93C31005EC2BYazorman@127.0.0.1...
> news (cag@digitalinc.net) writes:
> > How would I create a database alias name for the following database
> > testingdatabase.com
> > This database exisist on a remote server. I have tried using the
database
> > name as
> >
> > server.[testingdatabase.com].dbo.table
> >
> > were server is a linked server using sp_addlinkedserver
> > [testingdatabase.com] is the database name
> > dbo is the instantance
> > table is the name of the table.
> >
> > using select * from server.[testingdatabase.com].dbo.table producing the
> > following error.
> >
> > unspecified error
>
> I investigated the case, and it appears that neither MSDASQL (which
> judging from the error message you are using) nor SQLOLEDB handles
> this database name correctly.
>
> One workaround is to use OPENQUERY:
>
> SELECT * FROM OPENQUERY(server,
> 'SELECT * FROM
[testingdatabase.com].dbo.table')
>
> This I've tested and it works.
>
> I was also playing with specifying a defalt database to
sp_addlinkedserver,
> but I could not get this to work. Yet an other idea, which I did not try,
is
> to use sp_addlinkedsrvlogin to map to a user which has .com database as
> its default database.
>
> I should also add that I have reported the problems with your query,
> since it is obviously a bug, at least in case of SQLOLEDB.
>
> --
> Erland Sommarskog, SQL Server MVP, sommar@algonet.se
>
> Books Online for SQL Server SP3 at
> http://www.microsoft.com/sql/techinf...2000/books.asp