title: How to grant access to the user '<laptop_name>\ASPNET'?
body: <p>I have WinXP Pro 32-bit.</p>
  
  <p>I want to run a free trial for a web-based application. The app uses IIS 5.1 and MS SQL Server 2008 R2 (which is SQLEXPRESS). All of these are entirely on my own, single-user laptop.</p>
  
  <p>When I type the following, I get an error::</p>
  
  <p><code>localhost/gemini</code></p>
  
  <p>The error is:</p>
  
  <p><code>Cannot open database "Gemini" requested by the login. The login failed.
  Login failed for user '&lt;laptop_name&gt;\ASPNET'.</code></p>
  
  <p>I use Windows Authentication. The connection string in the app web.config is:</p>
  
  <p><code>&lt;add name="Gemini" connectionString="data source=(local)\SQLExpress;initial catalog=Gemini;trusted_connection=true;" providerName="System.Data.SqlClient"/&gt;</code></p>
  
  <p>I have SQL Server Management Studio.</p>
  
  <p>I've been advised to grant the 'laptop_name\ASPNET' user all access to the Gemini database.</p>
  
  <p>I'm not a techie. I would be grateful if someone could advise me how to grant access to that user. Because my laptop is single-user, I just want a simple solution - not a complex thief-proof, hack-proof solution  :)</p>