When I attempt to connect to SQL server using enterprise manager I get the strange message:
"SQL Server is not known to be running. Are you sure you want to connect?"
What is it trying to tell me?
Is there some special caution required in trying to connect to a server that is not known to be running? If so, how do I find out if a server is running before trying to connect to it, and why doesn't enterprise manager provide this service?
It is simply telling you that it could not verify that the server is running and that a connection may fail in the eventuality that the server is down (or there is a firewall, or the network is down etc...).
You can simply click OK and let it continue.
Enterprise Manager communicates with each server instance on a background thread to determine its current state. You can see this happening on screen - the icon is blank at first, then changes to either green or red as appropriate when EM knows its state.
If you connect to a server instance when the icon is still white, then EM tells you that it hasn't had time to get the current state yet.
Personally I don't see the point of doing this, you will find out within a few seconds whether it's running or not anyway. :-)