I had hoped that VB Express would provide a means to connect to a db previously created in SSE (so one could build a 'front end'. When I try to connect to such a database there doesn't seem to be a way to specify (local)\sqlexpress to connect to the sql server then a database and then to the tables. Can one only connect to databases created via VBE? If so, how then are they integrated? I have also tried to connect to databases created in VBE from SSE to no avail.

Actually I expected to see VB created databases to show up in the MMSE list of databases and vice versa.

I seemed to have solved this problem. I don't know how, but (perhaps after a reboot) I was able to connect to db and their tables from VBE using the database explorer.