How do I connect to a SQL Server 2008 database using JDBC?

There are mainly two ways to use JDBC - using Windows authentication and SQL authentication. SQL authentication is probably the easiest. What you can do is something like:

String userName = "username";
String password = "password";

String url = "jdbc:sqlserver://MYPC\\SQLEXPRESS;databaseName=MYDB";

Class.forName("com.microsoft.sqlserver.jdbc.SQLServerDriver");
Connection conn = DriverManager.getConnection(url, userName, password);

after adding sqljdbc4.jar to the build path.

For Window authentication you can do something like:

String url = "jdbc:sqlserver://MYPC\\SQLEXPRESS;databaseName=MYDB;integratedSecurity=true";
Class.forName("com.microsoft.sqlserver.jdbc.SQLServerDriver");
Connection conn = DriverManager.getConnection(url);

and then add the path to sqljdbc_auth.dll as a VM argument (still need sqljdbc4.jar in the build path).

Please take a look here for a short step-by-step guide showing how to connect to SQL Server from Java using jTDS and JDBC should you need more details. Hope it helps!

You can use this :

import java.sql.Connection;
import java.sql.DriverManager;
import java.sql.ResultSet;
import java.sql.Statement;

public class ConnectMSSQLServer
{
   public void dbConnect(String db_connect_string,
            String db_userid,
            String db_password)
   {
      try {
         Class.forName("com.microsoft.sqlserver.jdbc.SQLServerDriver");
         Connection conn = DriverManager.getConnection(db_connect_string,
                  db_userid, db_password);
         System.out.println("connected");
         Statement statement = conn.createStatement();
         String queryString = "select * from sysobjects where type='u'";
         ResultSet rs = statement.executeQuery(queryString);
         while (rs.next()) {
            System.out.println(rs.getString(1));
         }
      } catch (Exception e) {
         e.printStackTrace();
      }
   }

   public static void main(String[] args)
   {
      ConnectMSSQLServer connServer = new ConnectMSSQLServer();
      connServer.dbConnect("jdbc:sqlserver://<hostname>", "<user>",
               "<password>");
   }
}

I am also using mssql server 2008 and jtds.In my case I am using the following connect string and it works.

Class.forName( "net.sourceforge.jtds.jdbc.Driver" );
Connection con = DriverManager.getConnection( "jdbc:jtds:sqlserver://<your server ip     
address>:1433/zacmpf", userName, password );
Statement stmt = con.createStatement();

If your having trouble connecting, most likely the problem is that you haven't yet enabled the TCP/IP listener on port 1433. A quick "netstat -an" command will tell you if its listening. By default, SQL server doesn't enable this after installation.

Also, you need to set a password on the "sa" account and also ENABLE the "sa" account (if you plan to use that account to connect with).

Obviously, this also means you need to enable "mixed mode authentication" on your MSSQL node.