Greeting fellow DNN fans...

I've been bashing my head in for 3 days now...and cannot seem to install DotNetNuke 4.03.05 on my VPS with EasyCGI.

I continually get an error message stating that it could not connect to the database specified in the web.config file.

i'm not a newbie to DNN, i've been installing it since it was in version 2. I noticed that the VPS has the option to install DNN (v3) through PLESK, the domain mgt. software, but it required that I purchase the MS SQL module via Plesk before doing so.

Not wanting to shell out any more money, I decided that I would go with the newer version of DNN, and download and install both SQL Server 2005 express, and Visual Web Developer 2005 Express.

After trying to follow three different installation techniques (install version, starterkit version, and source code version, I still fail to connect to my database. in the following example i have been trying to follow the very simple Install version.

Here's what I've done:

1. downloaded DNN4 (install version)
2. unzipped to a folder
3. added the Virtual Directory under one of my domains's listed in IIS called dnn4
4. opened up the default sql server express instance ".\SQLExpress"...and attached the database.mdf file found under the DNN4 root folder under App_Data

browse to my http://localhost/$sitepreview/mydomainname.com/dnn4/install/install.aspx

and it continually tells me:
Could not connect to database specified in connectionString for SqlDataProvider

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found a little more info... instead of getting that general error message... I somehow got a more detailed description from my default dnn page

"Failed to generate a user instance of SQL Server due to failure in retrieving the user's local application data path. Please make sure the user has a local user profile on the computer. The connection will be closed"

I tried changing the SQL Server Service for my SQLExpress instance, to Log On As Local System, Network Service, and the Administrator account...

...all give the me same result, after stopping and starting the service. I also noticed that I still get this error message even while the service is stopped.

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...a little more info...

...i created a user account which I log in with, that I had added to the Administrators group.

I installed SSE while under that account. and when I run SSEUTIL -L it showed me a list of the default databases that are on SQLEXPRESS. it didn't show me the database that I had added, called 'database'.

so I logged out and logged in as administrator instead, and ran the sseutil again, only to find that when I try to run the -l (list) switch, I actually get the same error that DNN was giving me... "failure to generate a user instance..."

and if I try to run the -childlist switch, it shows me:

User Pipe ProcessId
Status
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
-----------
NT AUTHORITY\NETWORK SERVICE \\.\pipe\2960302F-C13C-45\tsql\query 6236
dead
VPS281\(my created username...) \\.\pipe\379452A8-EC27-47\tsql\query 3220
dead

if I run that same switched while logged into the account I created and added to the admin group, it tells me that the last item listed above is Alive. But when logged in as Administrator it's DEAD.

I'm used to using sql server 2000 and 2005, so this is my first time playing around with the Express Version. ANY HELP is greatly appreciated!