HOW TO CONNECT TO THE SHAREPOINT SERVICES INTEGRATED DATABASE WITH SQL SERVER MANAGEMENT STUDIO EXPRESS

HOW TO CONNECT TO THE SHAREPOINT SERVICES INTEGRATED DATABASE WITH SQL SERVER MANAGEMENT STUDIO EXPRESS

Re-published from: http://sharepointthing.wordpress.com/2011/01/23/how-to-connect-to-the-sharepoint-services-integrated-database-with-sql-server-management-studio-express/

Yesterday I’ve installed Foundation 2010 (for hundred and one time) and wanted to connect remotely to integrated SQL engine (basic install) with SQL Server Management Studio Express (free) and I got error message. Actually you can’t connect to WSS database remotely because network connectivity is disabled by default.

But after some late night digging I’ve found magic connection string \\.\pipe\mssql$microsoft##ssee\sql\query (for Sharepoint 2007) or \\.\pipe\mssql$sharepoint\sql\query or <servername>\sharepoint (for Sharepoint 2010) that you can use to connect to the Microsoft##SSEE instance.