Dear friends, thanks in advance for reading this:

I wanted to set up membership roles for my application. I am using Visual Studio 2005 Web Development. However, I could not enter into the security tab under ASP.NET Web Site Administration Tool(In a web interface look)... they threw me this:

There is a problem with your selected data store. This can be caused by an invalid server name or credentials, or by insufficient permission. It can also be caused by the role manager feature not being enabled. Click the button below to be redirected to a page where you can choose a new data store.

The following message may help in diagnosing the problem: Unable to connect to SQL Server database.

I had previously a Express edition of Visual Studio 2005 but I uninstalled it. Only after I installed the Visual Studio 2005(Non-Express) version.

I went to Visual Studio 2005 Command Prompt to troubleshoot, tried to Configure SQL Server for application services. But they threw me this:

Setup failed.

Exception:
Unable to connect to SQL Server database.

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Details of failure
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System.Web.HttpException: Unable to connect to SQL Server database. ---> System.Data.SqlClient.SqlException: An error has occurred while establishing a connection to the server. When connecting to SQL Server 2005, this failure may be caused by the fact that under the default settings SQL Server does not allow remote connections. (provider: Named Pipes Provider, error: 40 - Could not open a connection to SQL Server)
at System.Data.SqlClient.SqlInternalConnection.OnError(SqlException exception, Boolean breakConnection)
at System.Data.SqlClient.TdsParser.ThrowExceptionAndWarning(TdsParserStateObject stateObj)
at System.Data.SqlClient.TdsParser.Connect(ServerInfo serverInfo, SqlInternalConnectionTds connHandler, Boolean ignoreSniOpenTimeout, Int64 timerExpire, Boolean encrypt, Boolean trustServerCert, Boolean integratedSecurity, SqlConnection owningObject)
at System.Data.SqlClient.SqlInternalConnectionTds.AttemptOneLogin(ServerInfo serverInfo, String newPassword, Boolean ignoreSniOpenTimeout, Int64 timerExpire, SqlConnection owningObject)
at System.Data.SqlClient.SqlInternalConnectionTds.LoginNoFailover(String host, String newPassword, Boolean redirectedUserInstance, SqlConnection owningObject, SqlConnectionString connectionOptions, Int64 timerStart)
at System.Data.SqlClient.SqlInternalConnectionTds.OpenLoginEnlist(SqlConnection owningObject, SqlConnectionString connectionOptions, String newPassword, Boolean redirectedUserInstance)
at System.Data.SqlClient.SqlInternalConnectionTds..ctor(DbConnectionPoolIdentity identity, SqlConnectionString connectionOptions, Object providerInfo, String newPassword, SqlConnection owningObject, Boolean redirectedUserInstance)
at System.Data.SqlClient.SqlConnectionFactory.CreateConnection(DbConnectionOptions options, Object poolGroupProviderInfo, DbConnectionPool pool, DbConnection owningConnection)
at System.Data.ProviderBase.DbConnectionFactory.CreatePooledConnection(DbConnection owningConnection, DbConnectionPool pool, DbConnectionOptions options)
at System.Data.ProviderBase.DbConnectionPool.CreateObject(DbConnection owningObject)
at System.Data.ProviderBase.DbConnectionPool.UserCreateRequest(DbConnection owningObject)
at System.Data.ProviderBase.DbConnectionPool.GetConnection(DbConnection owningObject)
at System.Data.ProviderBase.DbConnectionFactory.GetConnection(DbConnection owningConnection)
at System.Data.ProviderBase.DbConnectionClosed.OpenConnection(DbConnection outerConnection, DbConnectionFactory connectionFactory)
at System.Data.SqlClient.SqlConnection.Open()
at System.Web.Management.SqlServices.GetSqlConnection(String server, String user, String password, Boolean trusted, String connectionString)
--- End of inner exception stack trace ---
at System.Web.Management.SqlServices.GetSqlConnection(String server, String user, String password, Boolean trusted, String connectionString)
at System.Web.Management.SqlServices.SetupApplicationServices(String server, String user, String password, Boolean trusted, String connectionString, String database, String dbFileName, SqlFeatures features, Boolean install)
at System.Web.Management.SqlServices.Install(String database, SqlFeatures features, String connectionString)
at System.Web.Management.ConfirmPanel.Execute()

I had the same issue last night. Your website is pointing to the wrong database.

Visual Studio specificlly relies on SQL Express Edition. If you have changed the <add name="Personal" connectionString="Data Source=.\SQLExpress.....] to any other database like a SQL 2005 or 2008 it will not work. What I did, until I can find a solution is comment out my SQL Express connection string in the web.config file and then add my new database connection settings. When I need to run my website locally, then I just reverse the procedure.