[dba-SQLServer] ISP doesn't support SQL Server?

Dear Group,

I'm out of my depth with this one, so I'm hoping that my question makes sense.

I have a client that has web sites on two separate ISP/servers.  One
site is hosted by Earthlink and it's a pretty simple half-dozen page
site with information about my client's company.  It contains a link
to a big web ASP/SQL Server application she purchased which is
accessible by members only.  That ASP/SQL application is hosted on a
separate server.

I designed the simple company information site for my client.  The
home page contains links to the other pages, of course.  One of those
other pages contains industry-related news items.  The home page
contains the headlines and links to those news items on the News page.
 Changes to the news headlines and news items is done by physically
modifying the HTML code in those pages -- the old-fashioned way.

I suggested to my client that she could have a more "dynamic" set of
news items if the information were extracted from a table in her
current SQL Server database and laid out in her company information
pages using some simple ASP/ADO routines.  So far so good.  By the
way, we're talking "classic" ASP, not ASP.NET.

I made a copy of the home page to start with and made it an ASP page
and inserted the code to open a Connection to the SQL database and a
RecordSet and so forth to extract the data, as well as the looping
code to format the pertinent industry headlines.  Well, the page runs
fine except no news headlines appear at all.  No ASP error messages,
just a little blank space where the headlines and their links to the
News page should appear.

I got on-line with Earthlink using their chat capability to talk with
a support guy.  At first I thought it might have been that I didn't
make the web site an IIS Application Starting Point.  That didn't seem
to be the issue.  But then the support guy told me that Earthlink did
not support SQL Server. He said that I could use Access tables for my
queries and that that would work fine.

Here's my question:  Since Earthlink supports Access in an ASP
application, does that mean that they simply did not install the SQL
Server ADO library or object handlers or whatever it's called, and
that their statement that they do not support SQL Server means just
that?  Why on earth would a big outfit like that NOT install SQL
Server ADO capabilities?  It doesn't make sense.

--
Regards,

Steve Erbach
Scientific Marketing
Neenah, WI
www.swerbach.com
Security Page: www.swerbach.com/security