Hi Folks;

I successfully installed DNN 6.2.5 on Windows 7, SQL Server Express 2008, but am tearing my hair out trying to attach the database in App_Data to SQL Server Management Studio, so I can use the various management tools. I''ve read several blogs on the subject, and followed the instructions, but without success.  After I do the attach, I add several accounts as database owner: e.g. NETWORK SERVICE, the Windows administrator (login) account onto the attached database, and change the connection strings in web.config  from this

connectionString="Data Source=.\SQLExpress;AttachDbFilename=|DataDirectory|atabase.mdf;Integrated Security=True;User Instance=True"

 to something like:

connectionString="Data Source=.\SQLExpress;Database=database;Integrated Security=True;User Instance=False" (in two places)

Then I restart the computer, and go to the URL  //localhost/dotnetnuke, but I still get a new Installation screen with  "cannot attach to any database" message. 

How do I figure out the connection strings to use?  The database is there, with all the DNN tables, but DNN cannot connect to it and just wants to reinstall.

Thanks for any help! 

Rigel

Rigel,

I got my DB to attach to SQL Express, read from SQL Express and run the site.

Prepare SQL Express per these directions:

http://www.aubrett.com/InformationTec...

Then change your connect string to this if you are suing SQL 2012.



and



Make sure to change the DATABASENAME-CREATED-EARLIER to the name of the DB as it was attached in SQL Express.

I am running IIS 8 and SQL EXPRESS 2012. Hopefully this guidance will work for you as well.

Just as an aside - you should avoid using a database file inside app_data in a production environment.  You can wind up with a variety of performance and permission issues depending on how your system is setup.  And if you are doing development work in visual studio you can also wind up with file lockouts and other oddness.

You are far better to create a database inside the sql server manager and let it handle permission and storage locations - and then connect to this database from dnn.

Westa