I have successfully established the connection to a database as follows

Dim conn As New ADODB.Connection
conn.Open "driver={Microsoft ODBC for Oracle};" & _
    "server=js;" & _
    "uid=hsonsche;pwd=hsons"
Set Cat = New ADOX.Catalog
Cat.ActiveConnection = conn

I have also succeeded in listing the tables contained in the database
in a combobox as follows:

Tbl = 1
Do While Tbl < Cat.Tables.Count
    If Trim$(UCase(Cat.Tables(Tbl).Type)) = "TABLE" Or Trim$(UCase(Cat.Tables(Tbl).Type)) = "VIEW" Then
        If Mid(Cat.Tables(Tbl).Name, 3, 1) <> "$" Then
            Downloader.Combo4Tables.AddItem Cat.Tables(Tbl).Name
        End If
    End If
    Tbl = Tbl + 1
Loop

Now the problem is that I need the combo4Tables should include Name_of_Table & Tables(Tbl).NumberofRecords

what is the syntax?

I would not like to use a recordset to first load the recs in it and then count them, is there a short cut way of doing this?

usually you will have to open the recordset and movelast() before asking for the .count() - in DAO, if you queried the recordset before moving to the last record, it would return a false value - fun...