Windows server, SQL Server Express access Issues

[caffrey]

Not sure if it's the right place to post this but here goes

 

I've set up a windows 2016 server VM for a year 13 student for some coursework. It's running SQL Server 2017 express and isn't domain joined - he uses remote desktop to access it

 

He's doing his coursework in VB and is connecting to the database and this was working fine until recently. Now when running the code he gets a error 26 server not found, after some digging I've discovered the code only works for members of the domain who are in the domain admins group (E.g. it works for me, which made it harder to work out)

 

I can't think for the life of me why, any ideas?

 

Wonder if it's worthwhile just creating a windows 7 VM and using that instead