If you want to experiment .NET Webparts YOU must read this
article of Pete Orologas. I learned about it first at
Sri Pachiappan's site. Trust Me, You will save A LOT of time.
Here is the Integral quote:
Issue:
ASP.Net 2.0 WebPart Error -(SQL Network Interfaces, error: 26 - Error Locating Server/Instance Specified)
When you try to use webparts in your application for the first time, and if you are not using SQL 2005 express chances are that you would be getting an error saying, SQL Network Interfaces, error: 26 - Error Locating Server/Instance Specified.
The reason is WebPart Manager looks for SQL2005 express as its db in the personalization provider.
Kudos to Pete Orologas for pointing the solution. I am just reprinting his solution here. All credits to Pete.
The Issue:
The webpartmanager is looking for SQL Express 2005 which, by default, is the personalization provider. We can work around this but if you are really eager to see your page displayed you can set the Personalization-Enabled="false" in the webpartmanager. This will render your page but it will also defeat any purpose of using webparts. For the real solution read on.
The Solution: (3 simple steps)
1) Open your visual studio command prompt located in "Start Menu\Programs\Microsoft Visual Studio 2005\Visual Studio Tools\Visual Stuido 2005 Command Prompt" and type in aspnet_regsql.exe. This will launch a wizard so that you can either create a DB or add tables to an existing database for storing personalization infromation. Click Next, Next, then enter in your DBServer Name. Lets leave the DB as "default" for now, click next, next, finish. By leaving the db as default the tool will create a database named aspnetdb
2) Now we have a database so we will need a connection string to access it from our Personalization Provider in Step 3. The connection string will go into your web.config and it will be similar to the one show below:
<connectionStrings>
<remove name="LocalSqlServer" />
<add name="DBConn" connectionString="Integrated Security=SSPI;Persist Security Info=False;Initial Catalog=aspnetdb;Data Source=DBServer" providerName="System.Data.SqlClient" />
</connectionStrings>
Note: The "remove" tag is used to inform Visual Studio that we will not be using SQL Express
3) The final step is to add our own personalization provider in the
section of the webConfig. The personalization provider will point to the store we created by using the connection string we provide (Dbconn).
<webParts>
<personalization defaultProvider="AspNetSqlPersonalizationProvider">
<providers>
<remove name="AspNetSqlPersonalizationProvider" />
<add name="AspNetSqlPersonalizationProvider" type="System.Web.UI.WebControls.WebParts.SqlPersonalizationProvider" connectionStringName="DBConn" applicationName="/" />
</providers>
</personalization>
</webParts>
