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

After much thrashing of teeth and much searching online, I found an Microsoft response that recognized the problem as something they could not recreate. They suggested that the person having the problem re-image their machine and start again. So it sounds like a few others may have run across this problem, but not enough to have an answer to it (or anyone who seems to have successfully fixed it without a re-image)

I have followed this suggestion after saving off all necessary data off to another PC. The second installation went well and we're up and running.