Connect to localdb using Sql Server management studio

November 18, 2012 · 1 min read

I was trying to find my databse for local db under localhost etc but no luck.

The following led me to just connect to it, kind of obvious really when you look at your connections string but.. its sunday morning or something..

From: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/sqlexpress/archive/2011/07/12/introducing-localdb-a-better-sql-express.aspx

High-Level Overview

After the lengthy introduction it's time to take a look at LocalDB from the technical side. At a very high level, LocalDB has the following key properties:

  1. LocalDB uses the same sqlservr.exe as the regular SQL Express and other editions of SQL Server. The application is using the same client-side providers (ADO.NET, ODBC, PDO and others) to connect to it and operates on data using the same T-SQL language as provided by SQL Express.
  2. LocalDB is installed once on a machine (per major SQL Server version). Multiple applications can start multiple LocalDB processes, but they are all started from the same sqlservr.exe executable file from the same disk location.
  3. LocalDB doesn't create any database services; LocalDB processes are started and stopped automatically when needed. The application is just connecting to "Data Source=(localdb)\v11.0" and LocalDB process is started as a child process of the application. A few minutes after the last connection to this process is closed the process shuts down.
  4. LocalDB connections support AttachDbFileName property, which allows developers to specify a database file location. LocalDB will attach the specified database file and the connection will be made to it.

ConenctLocalDbSSMS

This article is part of the GWB Archives. Original Author: Magnus Karlsson

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