OK well I spent about 6 hours banging my head against this, couldn't connect to the SQL server. It ended up being this:
When you install SQL 2008 R2 with a named instance (not the default instance name of MSSQL), SQL uses dynamic ports and does not listen on 1433 by default. If you install SQL express it uses the default instance so this is not an issue.
You can get around this by using the SQL configuration manager on the TCP properties to force it to listen on 1433 OR by setting the port for the installer to use the dynamic port that is specified.
This article helped me even though it's on SQL 2012: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms177440.aspx
I hope that helps you guys. Sorry if this is a duplicate of a previous post; I didn't make it through the entire thread.
- Jesse Reinhart