How to connect to a local database in SQL Server Management Studio?

sql-server database ssms
Alex picture Alex · Apr 6, 2017 · Viewed 85.9k times · Source

I have downloaded the SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS) 2016 to recover a huge .bak file which is an old backup of a database. But first of all I need to connect to a DB Server.

After install, I execute SSMS and it asks me to connect to a DB Server. I don't have any and I saw that it is possible to create a "local" db by typing only a dot '.' for Server Name and use Windows authentication.

It is not working; how to do it?

Answer

Xin picture Xin · Dec 7, 2017

Open SSMS -> Connect, and for the server name type: (LocalDb)\MSSQLLocalDB, and choose Windows Authentication.

For a reference:

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