my $DSN = 'driver={SQL Server};Server=server_name;database=database_na
+me;uid=user;pwd=password;'; 
my $dbh = DBI->connect("dbi:ODBC:$DSN") or die $DBI::errstr\n";
[download]

Hope that helps,
etm117

UPDATE: If I recall correctly, the server_name needs to be the name of your ODBC connection defined on the machine you are running the code.

found it -
my $dbh = DBI->connect('DBI:ODBC:'.$dbname, $dblogin, $dbpass)

was
my $dbh = DBI->connect('DBI:ODBC:$dbname', $dblogin, $dbpass)

forgotten to concatenate the dbi string !

Well, I think you got your question about DBD::ODBC answered above, but I'm puzzled that you

can't find a prebuilt dbd::ADO package for win32

It's in the ActiveState PPM repository as well as many other places:

H:\>ppm
PPM - Programmer's Package Manager version 3.1.
Copyright (c) 2001 ActiveState Corp. All Rights Reserved.
ActiveState is a devision of Sophos.

Entering interactive shell. Using Term::ReadLine::Stub as readline lib
+rary.

Type 'help' to get started.

ppm> search DBD-ADO
Searching in Active Repositories
   1. DBD-ADO      [2.94] A DBI driver for Microsoft ADO (Active Data 
+Objects)
   2. DBD-ADO       [2.7] ADO TypeInfo
   3. DBD-ADO      [2.72] A DBI driver for Microsoft ADO (Active Data 
+Objects)
   4. DBD-ADO      [2.73] A DBI driver for Microsoft ADO (Active Data 
+Objects)
   5. DBD-ADO      [2.81] A DBI driver for Microsoft ADO (Active Data 
+Objects)
   6. DBD-ADO      [2.82] A DBI driver for Microsoft ADO (Active Data 
+Objects)
   7. DBD-ADO      [2.89] A DBI driver for Microsoft ADO (Active Data 
+Objects)
   8. DBD-ADO      [2.90] A DBI driver for Microsoft ADO (Active Data 
+Objects)
   9. DBD-ADO      [2.91] A DBI driver for Microsoft ADO (Active Data 
+Objects)
  10. DBD-ADO      [2.92] A DBI driver for Microsoft ADO (Active Data 
+Objects)
  11. DBD-ADO      [2.93] A DBI driver for Microsoft ADO (Active Data 
+Objects)
  12. DBD-ADO      [2.94] A DBI driver for Microsoft ADO (Active Data 
+Objects)
ppm> describe
====================
Package 1:
    Name: DBD-ADO
 Version: 2.94
  Author: Steffen Goeldner (sgoeldner@cpan.org)
   Title: DBD-ADO
Abstract: A DBI driver for Microsoft ADO (Active Data Objects)
Location: ActiveState PPM2 Repository
Available Platforms:
       1. MSWin32-x86-multi-thread-5.8
====================
[download]