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2Jun/088

PHP Unable to Connect to MS SQL Server Express Edition


I’ve been struggling for several hours to find out why PHP 5.2.5 didn’t want to connect to MS SQL Server 2005 Express Edition although extension=php_mssql.dll already enabled and phpinfo() is showing MS SQL already active.

I always got this error messages when trying to connect to MS SQL:

Warning: mssql_connect() [function.mssql-connect]: Unable to connect to server: (local)\SQLEXPRESS in path\mssql.php on line 5

After doing some searching, I got an answer that PHP 5 is using old ntwdblib.dll version. The one that comes with PHP 5.2.5 distribution is version 2000.2.8.0 which seems doesn’t compatible with the new MS SQL Server 2005 Express Edition. I downloaded new dll from http://webzila.com (use the search tool) which is version 2000.80.194.0 and replaced the one on PHP folder with this version.

I use this code to test the connection and its working:

 
echo("Testing MS SQL connection... ");
 
if ($conn = mssql_connect('(local)\SQLEXPRESS', 'user', 'pass'))
{
    echo("Connection succeed");
 
    mssql_select_db('dbname', $conn);
    mssql_close($conn);
}
else
{
    echo("Connection failed");
}
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Comments (8) Trackbacks (0)
  1. Darsch
    July 16th, 2008 - 15:33

    Thank you very much for this post, you save me from a looong struggling with this issue! ^_^

    ( REPLY )
  2. Markus
    July 30th, 2008 - 01:41

    Hi Darsch, glad that my post can help you :)

    ( REPLY )
  3. Thomas
    May 16th, 2009 - 02:02

    Thanks! Just what I was looking for :)

    ( REPLY )
  4. Lorien
    September 16th, 2009 - 16:17

    Thanks for the post. It worked well.

    ( REPLY )
  5. Markus
    September 16th, 2009 - 19:02

    Hi Lorien, glad it helped you :)

    ( REPLY )
  7. jayesh
    July 29th, 2010 - 19:10

    Testing MS SQL connection…
    Warning: mssql_connect() [function.mssql-connect]: Unable to connect to server: 202.131.123.188\SQLEXPRESS in C:\xampp\htdocs\connect.php on line 5
    Connection failed

    ( REPLY )
  8. virak
    July 22nd, 2011 - 11:14

    Hi. I got this problem too. When I try connecting xampp (php version 5.2) with SQL SERVER EXPRESS 2008.
    I have tried many solution such as changing tcp ip, pipe name, static and dynamic port as well as create a system dns, but i still cannot solve it.

    Anyone could help me solve this problem, I would really appreciate.

    Thanks.

    ( REPLY )

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