If you connect to a SQL Server instance using SSMS and you’re trying to find what version of of SQL Server it is, you might be left scratching your head since it doesn’t seem to be in the server properties anywhere. Or at least there isn’t a value that lines up with the version numbers you’re used to hearing (2016, 2019, 2022, etc.). This will be a quick and easy post explaining how you can find the normal version name for a SQL Server you’re connected to.

What’s in this post

How to Find the SQL Server Version

The first thing you need to do is connect to your server instance using SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS). After you connect, you should see the server listed in the Object Explorer, which is where we will be getting the version number from. To the right of the server name in paratheses, you should see something like “(SQL Server 16.0.1000.6 – myusername)”.

That is technically the most correct version number for the SQL Server software you are running, but it’s not the one that most people think of when they think of SQL Server versions. To get to that version, you can look at the very useful table included on this blog post from SQL Server Builds.

For the example screenshot above, the server is really SQL Server 2022 because the “Release To Manufacturing” number of “16.0.100.6” corresponds to that version of SQL Server, as can be seen in the table included in that blog.

You can also find the same version number by right-clicking on the server in the Object Explorer list, then selecting “Properties” which will bring up a dialog where you can see the version and other settings for the server.

Note: For even more ways that you can find the version number of any SQL Server, there is this very useful blog post from SQL Server Builds again that I found super informative.

Summary

Now you should know how you can find the normal SQL Server version number for your instance based on the “Release to Manufacturing” number you will find to the right of the server name in the Object Explorer of SSMS. I wish they would put “SQL Server 2022” somewhere in the Properties of the server so we didn’t have to do this lookup, but for now we aren’t that lucky.

Note: Curious about what “Release to Manufacturing” really means? I found a great explanation on Wikipedia that clarified that term for me.