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Jim March
Asked: 2009-05-30 07:41:56 +0800 CST

How do I tell which version of SQL Server 2008 is running on a server?

  • 772

I'm trying to square up licensing, and I'm looking at a few SQL 2008 boxes that are in a cluster and I can not see where it says Enterprise Edition anywhere, even though I know that's what it's running.

I need to figure this out, because I have a few Reporting Servers that are on Virtual Machines that may or may not be running Enterprise Edition.

I can't do this through a query since the DB Services are not installed on the Reporting Servers. However, I still have to license those boxes

sql-server sql-server-2008 licensing

4 Answers

  1. Best Answer

    From KB321185:

    SELECT SERVERPROPERTY('productversion'), SERVERPROPERTY ('productlevel'), SERVERPROPERTY ('edition')
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  2. If you can launch a Query to the server you can execute

    SELECT @@version

    @@version returns the complete description of the SQL Server version that is running, including version and number.

    If you want to get this information and can’t connect to SQL Server to execute the query you can access the registry and go to the key:

    HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Microsoft SQL Server\INSTANCE_NAME\Setup\

    Here there are 2 values that describe the version installed:

    • Edition: Contains the name of the edition installed
    • PatchLevel: Contains the complete version number
    • 1

  3. Log at the log files in the directory /MSSQL/LOG. The SQL log files will be called ERRORLOG.x where x is a number, normally up to about 6, and it just indicates where the log file has been cycled.

    Open these in notepad/wordpad, and the edition should be shown when the server is started; for example one of my servers has the entry

    2009-05-17 00:00:01.86 spid89      Microsoft SQL Server 2005 - 9.00.3077.00 (X64) 
    Dec 17 2008 20:40:08 
    Copyright (c) 1988-2005 Microsoft Corporation
    Standard Edition (64-bit) on Windows NT 5.2 (Build 3790: Service Pack 2)

    You may have an issue if you regularly cycle the logs, and haven't had a server restart, but other wise this should help

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  4. I think I found a way.

    There is a file: C:\Program Files\Microsoft SQL Server\100\License Terms\SQLServer2008_License_ENT_1033.rtf

    That seems to suggest the Enterprise Version was installed.

    Remember, the paticular server I'm looking at, does not have any database services installed. This prevents me from using the Logs, or SQL queries to identify the version.

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