I doubt there are any unusual characters. This is something that is sometimes an issue with Windows Notepad but almost never with a real text editor like Notepad++ which you said you used.
If it's a constant error meaning you can NEVER get to your forum we have to see why VB can't make the database connection.
Do you have phpmyadmin installed? If so can you confirm the database is accessible? You should be able to browse your forum database.
Did you do anything to your config.pp file? Is it possible your database settings changed?
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