Embarrassingly enough, since SQL Server 2005 came out, I've made myself get in the habit of typing localhost instead of (local) because (local) seemed to time out on my laptop. I never really cared enough to research why localhost worked for my server name but (local) did not. In SQL Server 2000, I had written tons of DTS packages to communicate to (local) and once converted, they timed out for some mysterious reason.

Well finally curiosity took me and I did some research.  It turns out (as many of you already know) that localhost uses the TCP/IP protocol to communicate with SQL Server and (local) communicates over Named Pipes. This is not really a big deal until SQL Server 2005. In SQL Server 2005, Microsoft changed the behavior of the instance of SQL Server to not listen to Named Pipes by default. Thus, causing your SSIS or DTS packages to now time out. You can turn this on quickly in the SQL Server Configuration Manager as shown below. Simply flick the Disabled text to Enabled and you're ready to roll! It will require a stop and start of the SQL Server instance after enabling.

Brian Knight