I have two instances of SQL Server running on my laptop, one is SQL Server 2008 and the other is SQL Server 2008 R2. Now take a look at this image from task manager.

Can you tell which process is the 2008 instance and which process is the 2008 R2 instance? I can’t either. Now if you want to know what process id your instance is using you can do three things

1) Use T-SQL

Run the following query in a query window

select SERVERPROPERTY('processid'),SERVERPROPERTY('productversion')

I get the following as output when running that query on both instances

2212   10.0.2531.0
2184    10.50.1600.1

So, now I know that the 2008 instance is using processid 2212 and the 2008 R2 instance is using 2184

2) Look at the SQL Server log

If I look at my SQL Server log, I see the following

05/12/2010 08:24:25,System Manufacturer: ‘Hewlett-Packard’ System Model: ‘HP Compaq 8510p’.

05/12/2010 08:24:25,Server process ID is 2184.

05/12/2010 08:24:25,All rights reserved.

05/12/2010 08:24:25,© Microsoft Corporation.

05/12/2010 08:24:25,Microsoft SQL Server 2008 R2 (RTM) – 10.50.1600.1 (X64) Apr 2 2010 15:48:46 Copyright © Microsoft Corporation Developer Edition (64-bit) on Windows NT 6.1 (Build 7600: )

3) Use the services tab in task manager

This is probably the easiest one, just switch to the services tab

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