If you, too, are silly like me, then it’s possible you have also spent about an hour trying to figure out why Microsoft SQL Server Management Studio is refusing to connect to any of your remote databases, telling you:

An error has occurred while establishing a connection to the server. When connecting to SQL Server 2005, this failure may be caused by the fact that under the default settings SQL Server does not allow remote connections. (provider: Named Pipes Provider, error: 5 – Invalid parameter(s) found) (Microsoft SQL Server, Error: 87)

If this is happening to you, the problem may very well be that you have put backslashes before your database server name. Word to the wise—your server name should not look like \x\y. Instead, it should be a simple, clean x\y.

Give yourself a good moment now to feel like a complete idiot.

You’re welcome.