Problem with SQL Express aliases under Windows 7 and Visual Studio 2010

Question

Recently upgraded to Windows 7 Enterprise 64 bit and Visual Studio 2010. In previous versions, we configured the SQL Express 2008 alias to use localhost instead. \ SQLEXPRESS, so our configuration files should not change when checking TFS before being deployed to the stage or anywhere. After the upgrade, I can connect to SQL Express 2008 using SSMS and the localhost alias, but Visual Studio 2010 and IIS do not seem to be aware of this. Any ideas?

Answer 1

On 64-bit systems, when you run cliconfg.exe to create an alias, it by default starts the 64-bit version found in C: \ Windows \ System32 and puts the alias information in the registry on

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\MSSQLServer\Client\ConnectTo 

However, Visual Studio is a 32-bit application, so it cannot “see” the alias definition that was added to the registry in the default path (64-bit).

The solution is to create a 32-bit version of the alias, either by running the 32-bit version of cliconfg in C: \ Windows \ SysWOW64, or by adding the alias to the 32-bit equivalent location in the registry on

 HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\MSSQLServer\Client\ConnectTo