Is anyone out there using microsoft sql express 2005 with an appian installation

Any particular errors you are getting?

well changing the connector to sqljdbc4 instead of sqljdbc has helped. I now seem to have a connection issue. The error message is not very helpful unsure what has failed within the connection. I suspect it is related to acctual connection to the server rather than user credentials.

seems to be ian issue with the host instruction in the ds file for the target db of the primary datastore. error:
16:14:44,580 INFO [stdout] (MSC service thread 1-6) Caused by: com.microsoft.sqlserver.jdbc.SQLServerException: The TCP
/IP connection to the host //LNNOIS009./SQLEXPRESS, port 1433 has failed. Error: "null. Verify the connection properties
, check that an instance of SQL Server is running on the host and accepting TCP/IP connections at the port, and that no
firewall is blocking TCP connections to the port.".

James, are you able to establish connection from the server running JBoss to the SQL Server box using any of the JDBC based connection tools that are available (for e.g SQL Developer etc). The idea is to replicate the same scenario of how the appserver establishes the connection (with the Same URL etc) and drivers and make sure it works as expected.
Also, the error appears to indicate that the port is not reachable. Were any changes done to the port config or firewall etc?

both jboss and the sql server are on the same machine, mine. I think this is an idiosyncrasy of sql server express which is a cut-down edition. I had problems with it before however jboss 7.1.1 does not seem to want to play nice. I will continue trying different ds setting in an effort to resolve. I believe the server should be accessible to jboss, just not sure how to configure the connection parameters correctly. Previous errors were down to using an older driver.

James, have you tried using one of the tools such as SQL Developer, Toad etc., to establish a JDBC based connection to your SQL server? What I am trying here is to ensure that the SQL server can be successfully queried using the JDBC protocol. In the past, I have come across similar issues between SQL Server and the Express version. I remember that the JDBC URL had to be constructed differently for the two of them. Let me see if I can find more info on this but please do the test first. Secondly, if you have integrated authentication enabled, you may want to ensure that the JBOSS runs as the account that has been authenticated. By default, when you run JBOSS service, it runs as 'Local machine' and not as any user.

yesterday seemed to be more successful than today. currently getting this error in jboss output.
08:43:58,193 ERROR [org.jboss.as.controller.management-operation] (DeploymentScanner-threads - 2) Operation ("add") fail
ed - address: ([("deployment" => "appian-ds.xml")]) - failure description: "JBAS014803: Duplicate resource [(\\"deploymen
t\\" => \\"appian-ds.xml\\")]"

Seems like you have defined a duplicate entry. Remove or rename as appropriate and see what happens.

I honestly can't see where. These are the ds settings I am currently using:
<datasources>
<xa-datasource
jndi-name="jdbc/Appian_LNNOIS_Primary"
pool-name="AppianLNNOIPrimary"
use-java-context="false">
<xa-datasource-property name="ServerName">//localhost</xa-datasource-property>
<xa-datasource-property name="PortNumber">1433</xa-datasource-property>
<xa-datasource-property name="DatabaseName">Appian_LNNOIS_Primary</xa-datasource-property>
<xa-datasource-property name="integratedSecurity">false</xa-datasource-property>
<driver>com.microsoft.sqlserver.jdbc</driver>
<xa-datasource-class>com.microsoft.sqlserver.jdbc.SQLServerXADataSource</xa-datasource-class>
<user-name>***</user-name>
<password>***</password>
<transaction-isolation>TRANSACTION_READ_COMMITTED</transaction-isolation>
<xa-pool>
<min-pool-size>5</min-pool-size>
<max-pool-size>100</max-pool-size>
</xa-pool>
<timeout>
<blocking-timeout-millis>5000</blocking-timeout-millis>
<idle-timeout-minutes>5</idle-timeout-minutes>
</timeout>
</xa-datasource>
</datasources>

Do you have another -ds file in the directory. Could you have accidently made a copy of this file (probably named Copy of Appian-ds.xml???)
If not, try shutting down JBOSS, clear Cache and restart.
In order to clear Cache, you need to delete contents of $APPIAN\\bin\\jboss\\jboss-as-7.1.1.Final\\standalone\          mp directory.

And why is your server name //localhost?

Can you create a JDBC URL with the above details and see if that works? That's why I was alluding to testing using one of the SQL client tools so you know you have the correct connection string to use here.