I have VS 2008 and SQL Server 2005 Developer edition installed on my desktop. I have a instance of XP running in Virtual PC and want to connect to the dev instance. I am logged on as a domain user on both the desktop and the Virtual instance of XP. When I try to connect I get a message saying "Server does not exist or access denied". What do I need to do to connect. I am using trusted connection and the userid has privileges on the DB.
Paul
Make sure that the VPC is not using NAT for its network connection.
Also check your configuration to be sure remote connections are allowed. Remote connection is turned off by default.
Have you tried pinging your desktop from the virtual instance? I had the same problem and figured out that the firewall was preventing any kind of communication between both machines.
I found out that you have to go into the SQL Server Surface Area Configuration tool and set "Remote Connections" to "Local and remote connections". Apparently the default is "Local connections only".
I encountered the same thing, sort of - MS Server 2003 and SQLServer 2008 Ent running on VMWare, and get the "Server does not exist or access denied" when trying to connect from host machine (on Vista x64).
SO, do you reckon changing to "Local and remote connections" via the SQL Server Surface Area Configuration tool will do the trick?
For me despite configuring the SQL server for Remote Connections also, I could not access the sql server from Win XP VM.
So when I disabled the windows firewall from host machine, it worked fine!!