Mitchel,

Thanks for your note.

I am a business user with some good technical skills, but I am not a programmer.  I can see the connectionStrings and I see two of them.

Under the "<connectionStrings>
    <add name="  I understand all those varibles except the "providerName="System.Data.SqlClient" />"  I think that is set to the default value.

Under the "</connectionStrings>
  <appSettings>
    <add key=" the values are exactly the same as in the above connectionString.

I don't understand what you mean by "make sure you update the one that is NOT commented out!" 

It may help if you tell what signifies that something is "commented out," so I can look for that.

I think I have those issues covered (checked and rechecked and it looks right). 

I had to restore my SQL 2005 database and the DNN app files from prior to attempting the upgrade.  The old system runs great, but I cannot seem to get an upgrade to "stick." 

I think I need advise on "deleting" the custom modules I bought from DNNforge, et al.  I am thinking that once I remove those extras, I will have a DNN 4.0.3 framework that's clean.  From there, I will try the latest upgrade 4.05.03 (that numbering seems weird, but I looked at it twice....seems like it should be 4.5.3).

One last question:  I do not have VisualStudio, but I can download VS Express for Web dev.  I really don't want to be a programmer, but I do want to understand what's going on their.  I am also considering the SQL Server express tool as well.  Are those the right ones for understanding DNN?

Thank you!