jtds driver error Network error IOException: Connection refused: connect

I am trying to connect to msde with the jtds driver.  I keep getting this error:

Network error IOException: Connection refused: connect

I have read a lot of stuff about firewalls blocking the connection and all kinds of other network errors.  The problem though is that i can program the same connection in another language C++ or VB.net and i don't get any errors.  Also i am just trying to make the connection on the localhost.

I am new to java so maybe it's just something really stupid i am doing. Here is the code i am using to make the connection

            Driver d = (Driver)Class.forName( "net.sourceforge.jtds.jdbc.Driver" ).newInstance();
            Connection con = DriverManager.getConnection("jdbc:jtds:sqlserver://localhost/dbname;user=sa;password=sa");
            //sqlserver://host\instance:port/database
            //  jdbc:jtds:<server_type>://<server>[:<port>][/<database>][;<property>=<value>[;...]]
            Statement stmt = con.createStatement();
            stmt.executeUpdate(str);

oh yeah and str is a really long insert statement. I dont' think that's the problem but if you need to see it let me know i'll copy and paste it here.Start Free Trial