connect to the database engine

Hiii

I'm new on SQL , but I'm stick with articles for the past 10 days trying to install and connect adventureworks data, anyway; 

I have win 8 and installed SQL management studio 2008 R2 express (because I've tried SSMS 2012 , 2008 and all of them with the same problem), but I can't connect to the engine data, I've tried all the names for the instance name ( ". ", SQLEXPRESS , LOCAL, MSSQLSERVER, computer name )  plus browse for name in the list but nothing show on it, I tried in the configuration -> SQL server services but still nothing showing there too ? . they keep talking about Full text search or OLTP and I can't find them anywhere on the server ?