Show all the installed SQL instances on a server

Have you ever wondered if there was more than one instance of SQL Server installed on a physical server but didn’t know how to find out quickly? Well this piece of TSQL below should help which uses the undocumented stored procedure xp_regread. It can be run from the default instance or any of the named instances and will return a value similar to the screen shot below:

DECLARE @ShowAllSQLInstances TABLE

(

Value NVARCHAR(100)

,InstanceNames NVARCHAR(100)

,Data NVARCHAR(100)

)

INSERT INTO @ShowAllSQLInstances

EXECUTE xp_regread @rootkey = 'HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE'

,@key = 'SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Microsoft SQL Server'

,@value_name = 'InstalledInstances'

SELECT InstanceNames
FROM @ShowAllSQLInstances

Click to enlarge

[This piece of code is ideal for a Snippet.]

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SQL Server Snippets | Paul Hewson

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