What should be a simple engagement turned into a headache this evening. Importing from Excel in Sql 2005 has become more cumbersome due to various 'issues' with the import/export wizard.  So here is a good solution: SELECT * INTO XLImport4 FROM OPENROWSET('Microsoft.Jet.OLEDB.4.0','Excel 8.0;Database=C:\test\xltest.xls', [Customers$]) May have to enable Ad Hoc Remote queries in SAC. May have to place the Excel file on the SQL server's file system. Reference: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/321686/en-us