I know that you already answered, but I have the same error, but the solution was different, maybe this will help someone else.
When I configured ASP.Net to store session variables in the database, I got the same error
provider: named pipe provider, error: 40 - Could not open SQL Server connection
The cause of my problem was the inability to find the database on the SQL Server that I was connecting to. When I create the database correctly, everything works correctly.
Given the cause of the problem, I was expecting an error message
provider: SQL network interfaces, error: 26 - Search for errors Specified server / instance
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