>The Computer Manager does not seem intuitive to me. I guess I miss the Enterprise Manager where I can set things up.
>
>I cannot seem to see the local SQL server that I installed, SQL Server 2005 Express, therefore I cannot set up an ODBC connection to the server. Does anyone know how to do this? If you can cannot see the SQL Server, hwo can you then set up an ODBC connection? What good is this stripped down version of SQL Server then?
>
>Okay, okay, I'll settle down. I'm a little frustrated.

When you installed SQL Server Express you get SQL Server manager. From there you can start a service.
ODBC you can set when you choose SQL Native Client or SQL Server. I see my instance of SQL Server 2005 as localhost.