Making SQL 2005 Developer accept the connection string for SQL express edition

Hi, I have installed on my laptop SQL server 2005 Developer edition, I can change ANY of the settings of the SQL server and OS.

I am writing code with a team using continuous integration where the connection string is the following:
"Provider=SQLNCLI;Server=.\SQLEXPRESS;Database=Secret;Trusted_Connection=Yes;"

is there a way (create an alias,rename server, other?) to make my local dev SQL server accept the connection string above, as at the moment I have to rename the connection string every time before checking in code and after downloading the latest version from the code repository.

any advice or tips will be greatly appreciated

Thanks

JW.Hi,

setup an alias using the SQL Server Configuration manager. Configure a new alias to listen to .\sqlexpress and redirect to the installed dev server.

HTH; Jens K. Suessmeyer.

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