I just installed SQL Server 2008 Management studio Express on my Vista machine.

i tried connecting to local machine using :

.\sqlexpress, (local)\sqlexpress, or .\SQLExpress, MyPCNAME\SQLExpress

nothing is working, getting this error:

-----------------------------
Cannot connect to PC-NAME\SQLEXPRESS. A network-related or instance-specific error occurred while establishing a connection to SQL Server. The server was not found or was not accessible. Verify that the instance name is correct and that SQL Server is configured to allow remote connections. (provider: SQL Network Interfaces, error: 26 - Error Locating Server/Instance Specified)
----------------------------

On my vista machine i haven't installed anything else other than SSMSE2008 and power shell 1.0 that's it, is there anything else that needs to be installed ?

the problem is i don't see anything in SQL Server configuration, i took a screenshot of all the options, here it is:

http://img683.imageshack.us/img683/9085/sq3q.jpg

lavish wrote:

Just install SQL Server 2008 Express on your system....

There is something fishy here,you should see at lease one service at "sql server services" tab but you don't have any and that's weired,I suggest you to reinstall Sql server 2008.