Cannot connect to local db

Question

I am in a Supply Chain Masters program and need to install the Excel Data Mining add-in for Excel. I downloaded and installed Microsoft® SQL Server® 2012 SP1 Data Mining Add-ins for Microsoft® Office®.

This package includes two add-ins for Microsoft Office Excel (Table Analysis Tools and Data Mining Client) and one add-in for Microsoft Office Visio 2010 (Data Mining Templates). The add-ins are supported on Office 2010 and Office 2013.

Once installed, I cannot connect to localhost. I run two separate accounts: an admin account and a regular account. I've tried starting the service and it doesn't work.

I've tried to uninstall and reinstall several times. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

• Aaron Bertrand: Do you have SQL Server installed? Have you verified that it is running? What is the instance name? How exactly are you trying to connect to localhost? What does "cannot connect" and "doesnt work" mean? Do you get an error message? If so, what is it?
• dtattoli: i believe i do; installed SQL Server 2014 LocalDB Express 64 Bit; for some reason it has stopped running. not sure what i am doing wrong here. i am trying to connect via the data mining add-in. selecting new server name localhost selecting the dropping down from the catalog drop down and i get the error "a connection cannot be made ensure that the server is running" again not sure what i am doing wrong here. maybe more complicated that i first thought.
• Aaron Bertrand: Where have you verified that it has stopped running? Did you verify that you installed a default instance? Express is often localhost\SQLEXPRESS.

Answer 1

Note that this download SQL Server® 2012 SP1 Data Mining is not a SQL Server database service. Its just a tool/add-on to work with Office and connect to a database.

You must install SQL Server to connect to the database.

Microsoft offers Express Edition to use locally with no licence need.

• dtattoli: i have installed "SqlLocalDB", i then tried to install "SQL_AS_DMAddin" which was essentially the same thing. the error i get when trying to connect to local host is "no connection could be made because the target machine actively refused it. i am very unfamiliar with SQL and didn't think trying to install this data mining add-in would be this difficult. any advice on what i could be doing wrong would be greatly appreciated.
• dtattoli: any step by step directions would be appreciated, i honestly didnt think it would be this difficult to install SQL and the data mining add-in. i tried installing SQL Server 2014 LocalDB Express 64 Bit & SQL Server 2014 Express 64 Bit. essentially the same as the add-in. at a lost to be honest. appreciate the assistance.