Visual Studio 2010 Add Connection dialogue not populating databases

Question

I've installed Visual Studio 2010 and SQL Server 2008 (on 64 bit Windows 7). When I attempt to add a data source using the Add Connection dialogue, the dialogue is able to populate the servers, but when a server is chosen it is not able to populate the databases.

When a database name is manually entered and OK is clicked, the following error is received: "Unable to find the requested .Net Framework Data Provider. It may not be installed."

Things I've tried:

• Following the same process in VS 2008 works successfully.
• I've uninstalled and reinstalled VS 2010 and SQL Server 2008 (and install SQL Server 2008 R2) to no avail
• I have manually commented out the line in the machine.config(s) that associate the Compact Version of SQL Server (per forums that I've found relating to a similar issue in VS 2008). No avail.
• I have created a Virtual Machine and only installed VS 2010 (on the same version of Windows 7). This works, but I'd prefer to not have to work in a VM.
• An application that already has a datasource will build successfully and run as expected, but an error will be returned when attempting to update LINQ .edmx file from the datasource.

Anybody else ever experience this/have a solution that has worked? Thank you for your help.

Answer 1

The only thing to fix this problem for me was to go into both machine configs listed below and remove the data providers. Basically I went into the machine configs and changed this.

<system.data>
    <DbProviderFactories>
        <add name="IBM DB2 for i5/OS .NET Provider" invariant="IBM.Data.DB2.iSeries" description=".NET Framework Data Provider for i5/OS" type="IBM.Data.DB2.iSeries.iDB2Factory, IBM.Data.DB2.iSeries, Version=12.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=9cdb2ebfb1f93a26"/>
        <add name="Microsoft SQL Server Compact Data Provider" invariant="System.Data.SqlServerCe.3.5" description=".NET Framework Data Provider for Microsoft SQL Server Compact" type="System.Data.SqlServerCe.SqlCeProviderFactory, System.Data.SqlServerCe, Version=3.5.1.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=89845dcd8080cc91"/></DbProviderFactories>
    <DbProviderFactories/>
</system.data>

to this

<system.data>
    <DbProviderFactories></DbProviderFactories>
</system.data>

I know this post is old but I am hoping this reply will save some one a lot of time. Also you can remove the <DbProviderFactories/> tag and it will fix it too.

Machine Config locations. "C:\Windows\Microsoft.NET\Framework64\v4.0.30319\Config" "C:\Windows\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v4.0.30319\Config"