In Beginning Visual Basic 2005 Databases, I am trying to figure out what connection string I need for SQL Server Express. I am using the "pubs" database. I have no idea what user ID or password to specify with this Microsoft sample data.

Thank you in advance for your assistance.

Dave Kaufmann

Hey whats up ...well what you can do is try to make an account in SQL Express or try to use windows authentication integration mode.

But since it seems you want to use SQL authentication then here is a small sample that I've used for testing purpose

//////
 Dim objconnection As New SqlConnection("server=computerxp\sqlexpress; database=pubs; user id =sap; password = test123;")
/////



To break this down its pretty simple..
"Server=computerxp\sqlexpress;"..that is my computername \ sqlexpress instance name

"Database = pubs;...obviously the database name that you want

"user id = sap; password = test123;" ..pretty much I made a user in sqlexpress named 'sap' with the password test123

and that should do it for you.

P.S: also remember to declare at the top of your program
Imports System.Data
Imports System.Data.SqlClient

Good luck

Thank you very much. I'll give it a try.

Dave

Finally solved the problem by using Tools - Connect To Database. This utility created a connection string of "Data Source=.\SQLEXPRESS;AttachDbFilename='C:\SQL Server 2000 Sample Databases\PUBS.MDF';Integrated Security=True;Connect Timeout=30;User Instance=True"

The previous attempts at a connection string resulted in an error pertaining to "remote access". I suspect that I might have done something when I installed the sample pubs database. I am really not sure what I was doing wrong, but this new connection string worked.

Awesome I'm glad it worked for you. As for the remote access error I believe you can fix that by to going to SQL server configuration manager...but since you fixed it through to tools then its all good :D.
One thing though..if you use the tool wizard ..and don't quote me on this because i could be fully wrong..but doesn't the code that it generates then makes it more to machine specific...meaning if you want to transport your program to another machine and run it there it wouldnt run correctly because it was generated by the wizard..
Again I'm not too sure about this, but just wondering about it.