Dear Microsoft develpers and users,

creating an ADO connection using the connection builder is no big problem
(once I found out how to use it): Select the provider "SQL Native Client",
use as data source ".\SQLExpress", define the rest - and your connection
string will look like "Provider=SQLNCLI.1;Data Source=.\SQLExpress; ...". So
it works well in older development environments, e.g. Delphi 7 Enteprise.

But a similar way for ODBC or dbExpress is impossible to find out for me:
__

Creating an ODBC DSN does not work: I select the provider "SQL Native
Client", finish and get the setup wizard, which looks exactly like the
wizard for the previous versions of SQL Server (just in English; my Windows
system is German, so the wizard for the previous SQL Server provider is
German, too). Here I can specify the following details:

- Name: (name of the DSN; only typical identifiers are allowed,
".\SQLExpress" is rejected)
- Description: (only the description for human readers, irrelevant)
- Server: (here you can select a computer name or ".", but not enter the
"SQL Server Session Name")

I wonder, if the wizard is the correct one at all for use with the SQL
Native Client provider...
__

And for dbExpress, I'm not as confused as with ODBC: I doubt that the
connection will work with exactly the same driver pair as before
(dbexpmss.dll / oledb), most probably a new specific dbExpress library has
to be installed, once it may become available...

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Just got the solution (big thanks to Elmar Boye):

To be able to select a running instance on a server, the "SQL Browser"
service must be running.

Per default, it is installed to be started manually. If there are any
reasons .not. to set this to "Automatic" startup mode, please tell me... ;-)

Sure. SQL Server Express' default configuration is only designed to make the
server accessible to the local system. By not exposing it to the
LAN/WAN/Web, you eliminate entry points for hackers. MS intentionally made
SQL Server Express "invisible" to the outside world because most of its
intended users do not share the database or want it visible to others.

hth

--
____________________________________
William (Bill) Vaughn
Author, Mentor, Consultant
Microsoft MVP
www.betav.com
Please reply only to the newsgroup so that others can benefit.
This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights.
__________________________________

"Mario *LigH* Rohkrämer" <m.rohkraemer@true-professionals.de> wrote in
message news:ewtU37IdEHA.3596@tk2msftngp13.phx.gbl...
[quoted text, click to view]

Just to add, there's a newsgroup dedicated to SQL Express 2005 Beta.
Directions for access are at a link at the bottom of
http://lab.msdn.microsoft.com/express/sql/. You may need to scroll down on
the newsgroup page itself to see the NNTP login and password to the private
groups.

--
Cindy Winegarden MCSD, Microsoft Visual FoxPro MVP
cindy.winegarden@mvps.org www.cindywinegarden.com

Thank you very much; Elmar Boye already took me there successfully.

Now that I understood how and why, there are not many more problems left.


"Cindy Winegarden" <cindy.winegarden@mvps.org> schrieb im Newsbeitrag
news:OcRHHLYdEHA.2384@TK2MSFTNGP09.phx.gbl...
[quoted text, click to view]