Sql-server – Determine the SQL Server version and edition from the available set up, before actually installing it

installationsql serversql-server-2008-r2

We are going through a downgrade process from SQL Server 2008 R2 Enterprise to Standard edition.

To kick off the above activity, we were looking for available Standard Edition of SQL Server. We found one, but got confused on below points:

  1. The setup files (saved by an earlier team member) are in a folder that says it is SQL Server 2008 R2, but just to cross check before we start installing, we went through the default.ini file, which says:

    SQLSERVER2008 Configuration File
[SQLSERVER2008]

    This created a doubt if this is the correct version of SQL Server required. So is there any other way, in case above mentioned method is incorrect to determine the version, before we actually go ahead and try installing?

  2. Can we also check the edition of that available SQL Server, because on the set up, we can hardly figure out if it is really Standard Edition?

We cannot simply download new media, per our security policies. Also, we have no rights to download.

Best Answer

To answer your first question :

If you are not sure, then just manually launch the setup.exe and verify.

When you launch SQL Server 2008 installation using setup.exe, you will see:

enter image description here

Below is for SQL Server 2008R2 :

enter image description here

An alternative to running the setup executable, is to right click and look for the version there. It'll be something like 10, 10.50, 11, etc. so you do need to convert

To answer your second question :

From SQL Server 2008 and up, Microsoft has changed as the edition depends on the PID that can be found in DefaultSetup.ini. The DefaultSetup.ini for SQL Server 2008 and 2008R2 has same format. So essentially if you don't know, you have to make sure that you have the correct installation files.

;SQLSERVER2008 Configuration File
[SQLSERVER2008]
PID="xxxxx-xxxxx-xxxxx-xxxxx-xxxxx"

For SQL Server 2005, it was stated in the Servers folder default.htm. See

How to tell what edition your SQL Server setup files are

I don't think you can guess from the PID a particular edition of SQL Server. A full media will be good for all editions of a particular SQL Server version.

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