For the reference: SQL Server 2008 version numbers

If you have been following SQL Server 2008's development, then you are probably available that SQL Server 2008's first service pack SP1 is now available.

Although this service pack is first and foremost addressing usability issues, it also means that the version number of the product is changing. Programmatically, you might want to check whether this service pack has been installed. As you will surely recall, this can be done for instance with the @@VERSION function, as in "SELECT FROM @@VERSION". Executing this query returns a long string with version and operating system details, such as (here on multiple lines for readability):

Microsoft SQL Server 2008 (SP1) - 10.0.2531.0 (Intel X86)
Mar 29 2009 10:27:29   Copyright (c) 1988-2008 Microsoft
Corporation  Enterprise Edition on Windows NT 5.2 
(Build 3790: Service Pack 2)

For the record, the version numbers for SQL Server 2008 RTM and SP1 are now:

• SQL Server 2008 RTM: 10.0.1600.22
• SQL Server 2008 SP1: 10.0.2531.0

This can prove to be valuable information, if you need to reference servers with or without the service pack.