>>>>Hi,
>>>>
>>>>A customer installed SQL Server 2008 on their server. But when I connect to their server and open SSMS there is no name of the SQL Server there. So I went to SQL configurations tools and see that SQL Browser is not running. I assume that this is why I don't see it in the SSMS (correct me if I am wrong, please). So I go to the local services on this box (customer server) and see that the SQL Server Browser Service is not running. And I cannot start it. All options on the task menu are grayed. How do I start the SQL Server browser services?
>>>>
>>>>TIA
>>>
>>>I don't think you need to have SQL Server Browser (if I recall correctly, it's only for network discovery of SQL Server).
>>>
>>>Do you have the SQL Server service running?
>>
>>Why do you think I don't see the SQL name in the SSMS?
>
>Are you connecting on the same box where you have the SQL Server installed? If not, have you tried connecting by specifying the name manually?
>
>Usually DBA don't activate the SQL Server Browser service. You should know the name of the server to connect.
According to the IT customer guy (who is not a DBA; they don't have a DBA) the SQL is installed on the same box where I am connecting. He also cannot see the name of the server when going to SSMS. But when I go to the Programs -> SQL -> Configurations Manager I see that SQL Server is running. So I presume that I am connected to the right box. There are two things not running on in the Configuration Manager:
SQL Server Browser and SQL Server Agent.
"The creative process is nothing but a series of crises." Isaac Bashevis Singer
"My experience is that as soon as people are old enough to know better, they don't know anything at all." Oscar Wilde
"If a nation values anything more than freedom, it will lose its freedom; and the irony of it is that if it is comfort or money that it values more, it will lose that too." W.Somerset Maugham