Have you ever wanted to configure a remote database instead of using a local one in Microsoft Enterprise Desktop Virtualization (MED-V) but couldn’t find the steps on how to do it?  If so this one’s for you:

1. First you have to make sure the SQL installation on the remote server is configured the following way:

  • Instance Name: Default instance
  • Service account: Use the built in user account
  • Authentication mode: Mixed mode or Windows authentication.
  • User: the default user created is 'sa'
  • Password: <Desired Password>
  • Collation Settings: default.
  • Error and usage report settings: default.

2. Next comes configuring the MED-V server.  The following files need to be installed on the MED-V server:

3. Then just configure the connection String used in MED-V:

Data Source=<ServerName>;Initial Catalog=<DBName>;uid=sa;pwd=<Password>;

That’s it; you should be good to go.

Note: This information was originally contributed by Steve Thomas, Senior Support Escalation Engineer, on the MED-V Team blog:

http://blogs.technet.com/medv/archive/2009/05/07/how-to-configure-a-remote-database-in-med-v.aspx