A full install of SQL Server 2008 R2 x64 on my Windows 7 laptop resulted in being able to run SSMS, however there was no local server available that I could find. From other posts I used "osql -L" on the command prompt and it showed that there were no local servers.
Research led me to believe that it could have been due to a bad install, so I have uninstalled and reinstalled twice now with the same impact. On this last attempt I actually used a step by step guide on MSDN, and noticed something weird. The guide (and I think my installation attempts on other PC's), showed these three steps as part of the install:
- Feature Selection
- Installation Configuration
- Disk Space Requirements
When installing on my laptop I only have these options:
- Feature Selection
- Disk Space Requirements
I believe setting the defaults for a local server are handled in the missing step, which could explain why I don't have a local server configured after install.
I've been pulling my hair out on this one...any help is much appreciated.