How can I tell what license I have on an install of SQL server, or Windows Server?

Is there any easy way to find out what license(s) are associated with a running copy of SQl Server, or Windows Server 2008?

I have technet subscriptions, and an MSDN subscription, but sometimes I also use a trial software if I need to quickly get a test environment up for a short amount of time. I have plenty of legal licenes for all the software (they are all just for test/development), but I don't accidentally want one of my 'trial licenses' to expire unexpectedly....how can I tell if I am running a trial version or not?


For Windows 2008, I believe you can identify a trial version through looking at the System option of the Control Panel, then scroll down to Activation. If it is a trial, it should say something like "60 days to activate." Running winver from the command line should also tell you.

For SQL Server, I think if you go into SQL Server Management Studio then choose Help, About, it will display the days remaining on the right hand side.


For SQL Server you can run the following query:

SELECT SERVERPROPERTY('productversion'), SERVERPROPERTY ('productlevel'), SERVERPROPERTY ('edition')

For SQL server the query is:

SELECT SERVERPROPERTY('ProductVersion') AS ProductVersion, SERVERPROPERTY ('ProductLevel') AS ProductLevel, SERVERPROPERTY('Edition') AS Edition, SERVERPROPERTY('EngineEdition') AS EngineEdition; GO

see SERVERPROPERTY (Transact-SQL) For Server 2008 the command is (from a command prompt)

cscript slmgr.vbs -dlv