Cannot connect to SQL Server Management Studio

Question

tearing my hair out to be honest at this stage.

I have an installation of SQL Server 2008 express on my laptop. I\'ve been trying to login to SQL Server Management

Answer 1

Try to give only your machine name. Like if it is Your machine name/serverInstance so simply give it only your machine name then try to login.

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Explanation why this trick works: here Microsoft writes

An instance is either the default instance or a named instance. The default instance name is MSSQLSERVER. It does not require a client to specify the name of the instance to make a connection.

So if you created default instance (MSSQLSERVER) or named instance with name MSSQLSERVER you then should not add the instance name but just use the server's name (your machine name).