How to Find Your SQL Server Instances (Server Name) and Versions

This is a video demo of a http://learningsqlserver.wordpress.com blog post. This video shows how to check whether SQL Server is installed on your machine. It then finds the instances with SQL Server Configuration Manager (default instance and SQLEXPRESS instance). SQL Server Configuration Manager is installed by SQL Server 2005 and SQL Server 2008. Finally, it demonstrates how to write a query that will give you the version in SQL Server Management Studio. It does this by first connecting to the instance names in the “Connect to Server” diaog. The instance name is used in the Server Name field in that connection dialog.