title: Connect to LocalDB (Visual Studio 2013) from SSMS 2014
body: <p>I'm confused about how to connect to LocalDb from SQL Server 2014 Management Studio.  (I also have SQL Standard Edition installed on localhost.)</p>
  
  <p>I have a connection in my ASP.NET application like this:</p>
  
  <pre><code>&lt;add name="DefaultConnection" 
       connectionString="Data Source=(LocalDb)\v11.0;AttachDbFilename=|DataDirectory|\BillTest.mdf;Initial Catalog=BillTest;Integrated Security=True" 
       providerName="System.Data.SqlClient" /&gt;
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>When I go into SSMS 2014 and connect to <code>(LocalDb)\v11.0</code> I can connect and I see a database like <code>aspnet-BillTest-2015mmddhhmmss</code> but I can't open it. I get an error like "the database ... is not accessible."</p>
  
  <p>When I connect to <code>(LocalDb)\mssqllocaldb</code> I can connect, and I see a DB like <code>BillContext</code> and there are my tables.  I verified this is the one the app is connected to, by inserting new rows and seeing them show up in my app.</p>
  
  <p>Can you explain the discrepancy in connect strings: </p>
  
  <ul>
  <li>how is my ASP.NET application using <code>(LocalDb)\mssqllocaldb</code> when the connect string in Web.config is <code>(LocalDb)\v11.0</code>?  What is actually on <code>\v11.0</code>?</li>
  <li>And why does <code>(LocalDb)\mssqllocaldb</code> point to a SQL version (12.0.2000) that is neither 11.0 nor my SQL Server 2014 installation (localhost = 12.0.4100.1)?</li>
  <li>why is the DB name "BillContext" instead of "BillTest"?</li>
  </ul>