Retrieve MS-SQL version info without MS SQL Studio

After digging around for a customer to update their ms-sql server for an application, I had to find out the version they were using first.

Not having the Visual studio tools installed, there’s a cmdline tool that can do this.

As an authorative user, such as Administrator, in this case, I had to go to

C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft SQL Server\100\Tools\Binn>

(you can already see the ‘100’ that says something about the version, it can be something else, like 80, 90, etc)

Then type

SQLCMD -S server\instance

Where server is your server and instance the instance you want to connect to

You can also do

SQLCMD -L

to see a list.

Then, at >1 you can type a command, at >2 type ‘go’ to execute it.

Such as:

1> select @@version
2> go

That gives something like this:

Microsoft SQL Server 2008 R2 (SP1) – 10.50.2500.0 (Intel X86)
Jun 17 2011 00:57:23
Copyright (c) Microsoft Corporation
Express Edition on Windows NT 6.2 <X64> (Build 9200: ) (WOW64) (Hypervisor)

Or type:

1> select serverproperty('EditionID')
2> go
  • -1253826760 = Desktop
  • -1592396055 = Express
  • -1534726760 = Standard
  • 1333529388 = Workgroup
  • 1804890536 = Enterprise
  • -323382091 = Personal
  • -2117995310 = Developer
  • 610778273 = Enterprise Evaluation
  • 1044790755 = Windows Embedded SQL
  • 4161255391 = Express with Advanced Services

Or type:

1> select serverproperty('Edition')
2> go

Which in my case said “Express Edition”

Hope this helps you!

Have fun!

 

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