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Can someone explain why after installation of SQL Server some PC get a suffix of \SQLEXPRESS and some don't? Is there an option to change it?

Any suggestions or tips would be appreciated.

jarlh
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  • Do you mean the named instances? If so it is an install option. Please clarify your question, in this form It is unclear what you are asking. (Probably the info you are looking for: https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms143531(v=sql.120).aspx) – Pred Sep 28 '15 at 12:50

1 Answers1

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That is the SQL Server instance name for the new SQL Server you installed. A single machine can host multiple instances of SQL Server. The naming convention you see: hostname\instance_name is used to identify the different SQL Server instances running on a single machine.

When you install SQL Server Express, the default instance name created is SQLEXPRESS.

See:

  1. Default instance name of SQL Server Express

  2. How to: Identify a SQL Server Express Instance

  3. Instance Configuration

The hostname is used for machine to machine networking. That is the same name that is used for Netbios/SMB file sharing services (\\hostname) and normally resolved for TCP/IP services through DNS (http://hostname).

The hostname\instance_name is purely a SQL server naming convention. Its only purpose is to identify a running instance of SQL server. The SQL server client network libraries know how to resolve these instance names. The standard network stacks do not. This means the following do not work:

  1. ping hostname\instance_name
  2. \hostname\instance_name
  3. http://hostname\instance_name

The \instance_name only works with SQL server network clients.

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Michael Levy
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