I posted this same question in the BCM forum but haven't gotten help. Maybe
somebody here can assist.

In Excel, I'm trying to query data from a Business Contact Manager database.
I managed to do it by using the share feature in BCM, which is intended for
sharing the database with multiple users across multiple machines. I changed
the BCM database to share, and was able to set up a new data
source via ODBC using SQL Server in administrative tools. Queries into
Excel work great.

The issue is that I really don't need to share this database. I am a
one-person business so no need to share this database. So now SQL server is
running, asking for internet permission from my firewall, and when granted,
frequently listens to port 56183 (ZoneAlarm is showing flickering traffic in
and out whenever Outlook is open). I'm concerned that sharing this database
may introduce security risks and/or a drain on resources.

So, is there another way to use ODBC, Query, etc. to connect to the BCM
database WITHOUT sharing it? I know where the two database files
are(MSBusinessContactManager.mdf and MSBusinessContactManager.ldf) but can't
seem to figure out a way to query from them without "sharing" the BCM
database and going through the SQL server.

Thanks,
Nick