./sqlexpress

I love diving into new technology. So much to learn, so many cools things. A whole lot of reading going on. So I’ve installed Microsoft Visual Studio 2005 (VS2005) and am wanting to work through a number of the samples. In particular, samples related to database / n-tier development. And VS2005 has a lot of new features for databases and database development. But when your learning you need to start somewhere.  And I decided to start with the Microsoft MSDN Enterprise Library June 2005.  This is a library of source applications for you to take a part and learn from. So I download the files, and begin to set things up.  This is great, so to get the database samples running I need an instance of SQL Server.  And fortunately, one comes with VS2005, it’s known as SQL EXPRESS or MSDE (by its previous encarnation).  One problem it has no GUI. So how do you create databases, tables, etc. Well you could do it from within VS2005. But I’m a database guy at heart so I want my query window. Again fortunately, there is Express Manager a free download.  If you used the default VS2005 default setup you need to logon to a server instance of SQL EXPRESS. This one got me, I was thinking “localhost” would work, nope! I ended up discovering that the instance you logon to is.\sqlexpress (that’s dot slash sqlexpress) there you have it. So much to learn, so little time… fun, fun, fun…