When I installed Visual Studio Express 2012, I didn't have SP1 for Windows 7 installed. (This was the first version of VS which I tried installing). I do not remember if I received an error message or not in reference to SQL Server. In any case, I was not able to open the table designer when I tried adding an .mdf (service- based database) to a C# Solution. I uninstalled all of SQL Server 2012 that I could find, installed SP1, and then installed SQL Server 2012 with Tools.
I am still unable to add any new tables, and the database diagram node does not even show up.
When I tried connecting to an existing database from Management Studio, I could not access my documents folder at all. When I tried adding a new connection from the wizard, I received a message to update the installation (which should have been complete) by adding basic maintenance (or something else). When I tried that, I could not find a valid installation directory.
Do I need to uninstall Visual Studio and SQL Server and start again? Will doing so give me a problem with my registration? Or is there something else I need to know?