I'm a total newb to SSMS, but all of the tutorials I'm finding online gloss over the step where they start up the program and connect to their local server, their computer's name. I'm on Windows 8, and ISS is installed and running correctly. I'm not sure what else I could be missing. Here's a screenshot:
Use localhost
as server name. Append /instance_name
if you are using instances. For instance, if using SQL Express use localhost/SQLExpress
.