Cannot connect to SQL Express from my Application

Hey everyone, I'm having trouble connecting to my sql express instance through my vb.net application. I can connect to it from Visual Studio and the management tools, but get an error when connection with a connection string. What should my connection string look like? I'm using the a default SQLEXPRESS instance.

Can you try connection string like this "server=.\\SQLExpress;Trusted_Connection=true;"

|||I mean "server=.\SQLExpress;Trusted_Connection=true;"|||no luck so far. Just timeouts.. aarrrrr.