Trouble establishing connection to Local SQL database - sql

Question

Simply trying to find out the correct syntax for my connection string. Before anyone asks, yes I did look at other SO answers, and no they did not work for me. Here a couple of attempts I made from looking at other SO questions like the one I am asking
Server=(local);Database=SalesOrdersExample;Integrated Security= true
Data Source=(local);Database=SalesOrdersExample;Integrated Security=SSPI
Server=.\\SQLEXPRESS;Database=SalesOrdersExampleDataSet;Integrated Security=true
None of them worked (I have a Console.WriteLine("test"); thrown in there and it works up until I try conn.Open() (opening the connection to database) so I'm assuming that it must be my connection string since nothing gets written after conn.Open())
Console.WriteLine("test"); // works
SqlConnection conn = new SqlConnection("Server=.\\SQLEXPRESS;Database=SalesOrdersExampleDataSet;Integrated Security=true");
Console.WriteLine("test"); // works
conn.Open();
Console.WriteLine("test"); // does not work
So some information about the database is that it's local under my 'Data Connections' in my Server Explorer. I also have the .xsd file in my project so I have linked the Data Set to the current project I am on. Here is a picture representation to confirm that I have both the Data Connection and the Data Set.
EDIT: SO does not allow me to post pictures until I have 10 rep so here is direct link to picture:
DB Screenshot
Any help is appreciated thank you.

Answer 1

Visual Studio comes with LocalDB database, which is not exactly SQL Server Express database.
Try something like this:
Server=(localdb)\v11.0;Integrated Security=true;
or
Data Source=(LocalDB)\v11.0; AttachDbFileName=|DataDirectory|\DatabaseFileName.mdf; InitialCatalog=DatabaseName;Integrated Security=True;MultipleActiveResultSets=True
If using in c# code, you can use # to avoid problems with backslash characters:
SqlConnection conn =
new SqlConnection(#"Server=(localdb)\v11.0;Integrated Security=true;");