ben111 (4/6/2013)
So to connect to the new instance i choose (local), and to connect to the old instance I choose localhost\sqlexpress
Correct.
It's actually <machine name> and <machine name>\<instance name> for the two. For example, my laptop is named Excalibur and it has 2 instances on it, the default which is SQL 2008 and a named instance called SQL11 that's SQL 2012. To connect to the SQL 2008 instance I choose or type Excalibur and to connect to the 2012 one I choose or type Excalibur\SQL11
That is the opposite of what I would have thought, given that various things I'd read said that my new instance would be "named" and the old instance would be the general one for the server.
That would be the case if you had installed the first instance as the default instance (without a name) and the second as a named instance (specifying an instance name during installation). Express however always installs by default as a named instance, so accepting the defaults in the installation got you a named instance as the first one and a default instance (no instance name) as the second
Gail Shaw
Microsoft Certified Master: SQL Server, MVP, M.Sc (Comp Sci)
SQL In The Wild: Discussions on DB performance with occasional diversions into recoverability