>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.

AFAIK, SQL Express is different than MSDE because it runs more like a COM+ object than a true service. All of the code samples that I have seen for SQL Express include the filename(s) of the database to attach in the connection string. This leads me to believe that the server doesn't load until it is needed (and consequently unloads after it is not needed).