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Connecting to Windows Internal Database (WID)

·99 words·1 min

Whilst trying to figure out issues with a service which uses Windows Internal Database (WID) I came into the issue of actually connecting and managing it…

Steps to connect to WID:

* Download and install Microsoft SQL Server Manager ([found here](https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/sql/ssms/download-sql-server-management-studio-ssms?view=sql-server-ver15)) onto the machine hosting the instance

* Run Microsoft SQL Server Manager (SSMS) as **Administrator** (if not run as Administrator a permissions exception will be thrown when connecting)

Enter the connection string, this will be different depending on the Windows version:

* Windows 2003 - Windows 2008: \\.\pipe\MSSQL$MICROSOFT##SSEE\sql\query

* Windows 2012 onward: \\.\pipe\MICROSOFT##WID\tsql\query

* Connect using Windows Authentication
Joshua Robbins
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Joshua Robbins
I write about the things I’m building, learning, breaking and fixing across Computer Science and Cyber Security.