How can I find out the location of my (localdb) SQL Server 2012 database and back it up?

Question

I am using VS2012 and I have a database created:

(localdb)\\v11.0 (SQL Server 11.0.2100 - T61\\Alan)

How can I find out the physical location o

Answer 1

Open Windows registry editor and navigate to key HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Microsoft SQL Server Local DB\Installed Versions. Look beneath the version key of the SQL Server instance being targeted e.g. 11.0 for SQL 2012, and see its InstanceAPIPath value for file system location of the localdb's.

Note that at full list of SQL server versions mapped to release name and year can be found here