How to fix error running storage emulator for Azure in VS 2010?

Question

I get an error when attempting to run a .NET app in Azure on the devFabric in VS2010.
The error I get is:

Windows Azure Tools: Failed to initialize Windows Azure storage emulator. Unable to start Development Storage. Failed to start Development Storage: the SQL Server instance ‘localhost\SQLExpress’ could not be found. Please configure the SQL Server instance for Development Storage using the ‘DSInit’ utility in the Windows Azure SDK.

So I ran dsInit from the Azure SDK and I get the following error:

Added reservation for http://127.0.0.1:10000/ in user account Tim-T500-32Win7\Tim. Added reservation for http://127.0.0.1:10001/ in user account Tim-T500-32Win7\Tim. Added reservation for http://127.0.0.1:10002/ in user account Tim-T500-32Win7\Tim.

Creating database DevelopmentStorageDb20090919... Cannot create database 'DevelopmentStorageDb20090919' : 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)

One or more initialization actions have failed. Resolve these errors before attempting to run the storage emulator again. These errors can occur if SQL Server was installed by someone other than the current user. Please refer to http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=205140 for more details.

SQL Server 2008 running on my machine but I really am not sure what the issue is. The page referenced in the second error message talks about sql 2005.

Any suggestions on how to get storage emulator working with 2010?

EDIT Note also - for some reason there is an entry in my Sql Server Config Manager for SQL Express but I can do nothing with it - it is apparently a dead link.
If this is the cause then is there a suggested way to fix the issue?

Answer 1

I feel very foolish

I had disabled SQLExpress when I needed to run SQL Server (not express)