Remote Connections Error

I am getting the following connection error:

An error has occurred while establishing a connection to the server.  When connecting to SQL Server 2005, this failure may be caused by the fact that under the default settings SQL Server does not allow remote connections. (provider: SQL Network Interfaces, error: 26 - Error Locating Server/Instance Specified)

When I run the page locally on my develepment environment, the page runs fine.  I'm using VS2005 and SQL Server Management Studio Express.

When I upload the page to the remote server, I get the connection error indicated above.

To further troubleshoot the issue, I created a simple test page with the connection string hardcoded in the code-behind and binded to a dropdownlist using the following code:

SqlConnection conn = new SqlConnection("Data Source=xxx.xxx.xxx.xx;network=DBMSSOCN;Initial Catalog=TechCenter;Persist Security Info=True;User ID=xxxxx;Password=xxxxxrx;Asynchronous Processing=True;MultipleActiveResultSets=True");

        conn.Open();
        SqlDataReader dr;
        SqlCommand command = new SqlCommand("SELECT RecordID, customer_id FROM Customers WHERE recordtype <> 'F' ORDER BY customer_id ASC", conn);
        dr = command.ExecuteReader();
        while (dr.Read())
        {
            DropDownList1.Items.Add(new ListItem(dr["customer_id"].ToString(), dr["RecordID"].ToString()));
        }
        dr.Close();
        conn.Close();

When I run the test page, it works fine, so I know I'm using the correct connection string properties.

When I move the connection string to the web.config file and using a dataset with a tableadapter, I get the error about the sql server not allowing remote connections?  I'm stumped.  I cannot isolate the cause of the error.

The remote server is using sql server 2000 and error indicates it is trying to connect to SQL Server 2005??? 

Any help would be greatly appreciated.
Thank you.