Windows Service unable to connect to SQL Server on localhost

Question

I have written a VB.Net Windows Service to retrieve & insert a number of rows from two local SQL Server 2008 databases found on a Windows Server 2012 machine. On my local development machine, the service runs perfectly, but when I try to run it on the Server, the service shows the following error:

A network-related or instance-specific error occurred while establishing a connection to SQL Server. The server was not found or was not accessible. Verify that the instance name is correct and that SQL Server is configured to allow remote connections. (provider: SQL Network Interfaces, error: 26 - Error Locating Server/Instance Specified) - 11/11/2012 11:50:37 AM

On the same server machine I have IIS installed with a web-application that connects to the same SQL Server databases. This application works perfectly (the SQL Server is set using both Windows & SQL Authentication and I am using a particular user to access SQL Server)

I am, of course, using the same connection string for both the application and the service.

Does anyone have any idea what I might still be doing wrong?

Thanks in advance for your help :)

Answer 1

To solve this problem I created a new local user on the server machine, thus allowing me to run services without domain rule hassles, checked my connection strings, and the system ran correctly almost immediately.

Thanks to all who tried to help!