Tech Tips: How to Find What Version of SQL 2005/2008 You Are Running

If you have ever tried to find the version of SQL you are running you know it's not exactly straight forward, you have to do a little digging to find the answer. If you aren't familiar with SQL then you probably have no idea how to find this information. This guide will give you two methods to retrieve the info and step by step instructions to help you out.

First you would think that like most other programs that are built by Microsoft, you could just find the info either by checking in the add/remove programs section (usually lists version of programs) or you could check within the console by clicking the Help>>About section. Neither is true when you are dealing with SQL, you will have to run a query within the SQL console to find the product version information.

So first you will need to have the SQL Server Management Studio Express installed on your PC. You can get it for free from Microsoft HERE for 2005 and HERE for 2008. Install the product and once you are finished follow these steps to get the info you want.

Open SQL Server Management Studio

Type in Server name

Choose your authentication method (most common is Windows Authentication)

If needed type in username and password

Click Connect (You should connect to the DB server)

Click File>>New>>Query with current connection (CTRL + N also will accomplish this)

Type the following command SELECT SERVERPROPERTY ('productversion'), SERVERPROPERTY ('productlevel'), SERVERPROPERTY ('edition')

Click Execute button

Your results will display below the Query Window

You should now know the version number of SQL you are running (my case it was 9.00.3356.00) the service pack level (SP2 for me) and the type of SQL server (standard for me).

If you want even more info about your SQL server then you can use a different command that will give you a little more in-depth information about your version of SQL. It's just a slightly different query you will want to run, to get this more detailed info do the following:

Open SQL Server Management Studio

Type in Server name

Choose your authentication method (most common is Windows Authentication)

If needed type in username and password

Click Connect (You should connect to the DB server)

Click File>>New>>Query with current connection (CTRL + N also will accomplish this)

Type the following command xp_msver

Click Execute button

Your results will display below the Query Window

You should get a much more detailed view with many more columns with information about your SQL server. Most of this information you can find elsewhere but it's nice to have it in one location like this if you really need all of this information about the SQL server.

Those are two easy queries you can run to get all the information you need about what version of SQL 2005 and 2008 you are running. Hope you got what you needed by running these queries, if you have other solutions please leave a comment below for others.