How to install Microsofts SQLServer  JDBC drivers into the standard Java path
=============================================================================

download/get the Microsoft SQL jdbc package file (i.e. sqljdbc_1.1.1501.101_enu.tar.gz)

verify content of the file: zcat sqljdbc_1.1.1501.101_enu.tar.gz | tar tf -
fm@DDM1307811:~> zcat sqljdbc_1.1.1501.101_enu.tar.gz | tar tf - | more
sqljdbc_1.1/enu/auth/x64/sqljdbc_auth.dll
sqljdbc_1.1/enu/help/default.htm
...
sqljdbc_1.1/enu/install.txt
sqljdbc_1.1/enu/license.txt
sqljdbc_1.1/enu/release.txt
sqljdbc_1.1/enu/sqljdbc.jar
...

Either add the directory containing mysql-connector-java-5.0.4.zip to the classpath
or:
copy the extracted sqljdbc.jar to $JAVA_HOME/jre/lib/ext (i.e. /usr/java1.2/jre/lib/ext)
DDM1307811:/home/fm/sqljdbc_1.1/enu # cp sqljdbc.jar /usr/java/jdk1.5.0_09/jre/lib/ext/
DDM1307811:/home/fm/sqljdbc_1.1/enu # ls -l /usr/java/jdk1.5.0_09/jre/lib/ext/
total 10236
drwxr-xr-x   2 root root    4096 2006-12-18 11:20 .
drwxr-xr-x  16 root root    4096 2006-10-23 12:58 ..
-rw-r--r--   1 root root    8176 2006-10-12 20:45 dnsns.jar
-rw-r--r--   1 root root  802388 2006-10-23 12:58 localedata.jar
-rw-r--r--   1 root root  253122 2006-12-18 11:20 sqljdbc.jar
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
-r--r--r--   1 root root  158417 2006-10-12 20:26 sunjce_provider.jar
-r--r--r--   1 root root  175811 2006-10-12 20:26 sunpkcs11.jar

verify jdbc connection to database:

vi JdbcTest.java

//JdbcTest.java
import java.sql.Connection ;
import java.sql.DriverManager ;
import java.sql.ResultSet ;
import java.sql.Statement ;
import java.sql.SQLException;

class JdbcTest
{
  public static void main (String args[])
    {
      try {
        Class.forName("com.microsoft.sqlserver.jdbc.SQLServerDriver");
       }
        catch (ClassNotFoundException e) {
            System.err.println (e) ;
            System.exit (-1) ;
        }
       try {

            // open connection to database
           Connection connection = DriverManager.getConnection(
             // "jdbc:sqlserver://localhost:1433;databaseName=AdventureWorks;user=dbuser;password=dbpassword;"
             //  Microsofts data catalog is in db called "sys"
             "jdbc:sqlserver://localhost:1433;databaseName=sys;user=MyUserName;password=pass;"
            );
            // build query, here we use table "databases"
            String query = "SELECT * From databases" ;

            // execute query
            Statement statement = connection.createStatement () ;
            ResultSet rs = statement.executeQuery (query) ;

            System.out.println ("Query:") ;
            while ( rs.next () )
                // display content from column "name"
                System.out.println (rs.getString ("name")) ;
            connection.close () ;

        }
        catch (java.sql.SQLException e) {
            System.err.println (e) ;
            System.exit (-1) ;

        }
    }
}

Make sure there is a db user and this user got the correct access rights, i.e. to connect from remote systems.

Literature:

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=6d483869-816a-44cb-9787-a866235efc7c&DisplayLang=en