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Editorial Team
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Asked: 2026-05-17T18:32:25+00:00

My machine Win7 has SQL Server 2005 and SQL Server 2008 installed. Also, Sql

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My machine Win7 has SQL Server 2005 and SQL Server 2008 installed.
Also, Sql Server Management Studio is installed with SQL Server 2008.

Now, I want to connect to SQLEXPRESS instance running currently on my machine.
How do I know if i will need Management Studio 2005 or 2008 to connect to SQLEXPRESS?

Just to add that I have already tried connection with SSMS 2008, but it says

Can’t connect to .\SQLEXPRESS, Login failed.

One thing I just noticed is that under Windows Authentication,
User name is showing my user name with which I logged in to Windows.
But this machine used to belong to someone else and computer name has not changed to mine.
Could this be reason for login failure?

Thank you!

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1 Answer

  1. Editorial Team

    SSMS2008 can connect to SQLExpress 2005 or 2008 instances, so use that version.

    Login failed can mean several things:

    • the database is not running (the service is stopped)
    • you got the machine or instance name wrong
    • your credentials (login/pass) were wrong or you used the wrong authentication method
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