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Editorial Team
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Asked: 2026-06-16T09:53:55+00:00

To clarify this in the start. I don’t have much experience with SQL Server

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To clarify this in the start. I don’t have much experience with SQL Server so every help will be appreciated.

I have a task to set up some program with a SQL Server Express database which is located on a remote server. The database is, as far as I know, configured and should be working. This is the information I have to connect to the database:

  • IP: xx.xxx.xxx.xxx
  • The administrator password is ‘somepassword’
  • The SA password is ‘anotherpassword’

I think this info is incomplete because there is no username. But what worries me is that I don’t get feedback that my password or username are incorrect. Instead I get the error:

A network-related or instance-specific error occurred while
establishing a connection to SQL Server…

I’m using SQL Server Management Studio to connect to the database (SQL Server 2012 Express) and I added an exception in firewall for Management Studio.

And what is the difference between administrator and SA (system administrator) password?

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1 Answer

  1. Editorial Team

    The message you are receiving basically means “I can’t connect to SQL Server”. It can be due to a number of issues:

    1. The SQL Server service is not running
    2. The SQL Server instance is not configured to use TCP/IP to communicate
    3. The database is using windows authentication and the user is not authorized or
    4. The database is using mixed-mode authentication and the user/pass is incorrect

    As for the usernames you are given, I would assume that the “administrator” username is local windows administrator of the machine SQL server is running on, and that the “sa” user is the default database administrator, that is installed when setting SQL Server to use mixed-mode authentication.

    So, I would recommend to try connecting to the database using Mixed-mode authentication, with the username “sa” and the “anotherpassword” password.

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