More of a reminder for myself, as this has happened multiple times. If you try to attach to a database and you get an ‘access denied’ error, be sure to run SSMS as an Administrator. Some posts will also mention that the SQL Server service account needs Modify access to the file/folder. But the former ‘fix’ did the trick this time.

I recently started using SSMS 2012 and man was it slow when connecting to local databases. I thought perhaps it was a byproduct of it being written ‘on top of’ Visual Studio technology.

It turns out it was likely just some slow name resolutions. Be sure to use (local) when referring to the local machine/server. Credit goes to this forum post.