Question : Sage ACT 8.0 - problems accessing the database .pad file from another PC

With the help of the following KB artical ( http://itdomino.act.com/act.nsf/docid/14568) I sucessfully recreated a new .pad file and gave users access to a shared data base 1 month on its done it again but recreating the .pad browsing to it and opening it produces the following problem.

The database ... could not be accessed. In order to access this database, check your network connection and verify that your database server is available. It may be necessary to disable any firewall software on your computer or the server.

Tried a database integ check and repair also disable windows firewall - Any Ideas ?

Answer : Sage ACT 8.0 - problems accessing the database .pad file from another PC

No doubt you got connectivity to the share, but since ACT 8 is SQL based, you'll also need to be sure that port is open...IIRC act can use either a static port or it will dynamically assign a new listening port (not sure how that gets communicated to the client though, probably though the PAD file settings.    

Here is a tool from Sage that does some SQL checks and further explains methods to diagnose SQL issues.  
http://itdomino.act.com/act.nsf/docid/18271