First, my apologies for being so thick.  I've successfully installed DNN locally before but this time I seem to be missing something simple. 

I'm using 4.4.1, the Install package.  My computer is running XP SP2.  I've installed SQL Express with SP2 and I'm using SQL Server Management Studio Express to create a database.  I've renamed the release.config file to web.config.  I'm also quite sure that the local IIS configuration is correct.  The problem seems to be with how I set up SQL Express.   It seems no matter what I do, I continue to get:

Error Installing DotNetNuke

Current Assembly Version: 04.04.01

ERROR: Could not connect to database specified in connectionString for SqlDataProvider

I think I'm possibly missing something with user access, but at this point I'm not sure.  I've tried creating and recreating the database so many times I've lost track of my changes. SQL Express is my weak point and I'm sure my problem is there.

If someone would be so kind as to outline the steps for creating the database, creating a user, and modifying the web.config based on the the database I create, I'd appreciate it.  Or if someone knows of a document that that outlines the steps specifically for SQL Server Express and what changes need to be made in web.config, that would be a great help. I've found a few around the web, but each doc. seems to assume some step that I am missing.

Thanks

Thanks for the response.  Here's my connection string section as requested. Please let me know if you need more.

<connectionStrings>
    <!-- Connection String for SQL Server 2005 Express -->
    <add
      name="SiteSqlServer" connectionString="Data Source=.\SQLExpress;Integrated Security=True;User Instance=True;AttachDBFilename=|DataDirectory|DotNetNuke.mdf;uid=XXXX;pwd=XXXX;"
      providerName="System.Data.SqlClient" />
  </connectionStrings>

AND

<appSettings>
    <!-- Connection String for SQL Server 2005 Express - kept for backwards compatability - legacy modules   -->
    <add key="SiteSqlServer" value="Data Source=.\SQLExpress;Integrated Security=True;User Instance=True;AttachDBFilename=|DataDirectory|DotNetNuke.mdf;uid=XXXX;pwd=XXXX;"/>

etc.