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Asked: 2026-05-10T20:43:42+00:00

I’m running SQL Server 2008 Express on Windows XP on a VirtualPC instance inside

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I’m running SQL Server 2008 Express on Windows XP on a VirtualPC instance inside a Windows XP host. I want to be able to connect to databases on the guest instance using SSMS on the host. When I go to connect from SSMS on the host, and browse for servers, I see the instance of SQL Server on the guest. Yet when I try to connect, using a SQL authentication login, I get the following connection error:

A network-related or instance-specific error occurred while establishing a connection to SQL Server. The server was not found or was not accessible. Verify that the instance name is correct and that SQL Server is configured to allow remote connections. (provider: SQL Network Interfaces, error: 28 – Server doesn’t support requested protocol) (Microsoft SQL Server, Error: -1)

I have:
* tried connecting with both Name Pipes and TCP/IP
* ensured that the SQL Browser service is up
* ensured that the firewall on the guest is open
* the server is configured to allow remote connections (according to the database engine properties within SSMS on the guest)

What am I missing?

EDIT: I figured this out. My resolution is below.

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1 Answer

  1. SELF-ACCEPTED ANSWER

    Thanks for the ideas. After much fiddling I got things working. It turned out that I had not gone into the Sql Server Configuration Manager and enabled TCP/IP and Named Pipes as network protocols. So even though SSMS said remote connections were enabled, there was no protocol to allow for them other than shared memory. After I did this I restarted the SQL Server service, but things still didn’t seem to work properly. Yet once I had rebooted both the guest and host, everything was working as expected.

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