I recently ran into an issue where I needed to change the local instance of SQL Server 2005 from the Standard Edition to the Developer Edition. This was so I could install the latest version of Team Edition for Database Professionals which is currently at the CTP7 release. You can download it here. More about this fantastic new tool in a later post.

The tool requires either the Developer or Enterprise editions of SQL Server. And I had Standard Edition installed. I felt slightly ill at the prospect of uninstalling SQL Server and re-installing the Developer Edition, re-importing all my databases and the rest of the overhead involved. Surely there must be a better way! And there is!

Note: Microsoft has a great KB that helps you determine your SQL Server version and edition here so if you are unsure what version and edition you have check this article out for how to determine for yourself. For my version (2005) I ran the following query: SELECT  SERVERPROPERTY('productversion'), SERVERPROPERTY ('productlevel'), SERVERPROPERTY ('edition')

It turns out that you can indeed “Upgrade” from one SQL Server Edition to another via the foresight and magic of the SKUUPGRADE command line parameter. I inserted the Developer Edition CD, opened an command prompt and typed the following command line in:

start /wait setup.exe ADDLOCAL=SQL_Engine INSTANCENAME=MSSQLSERVER UPGRADE=SQL_Engine SKUUPGRADE=1 /qb

You can replace the /qb with /qn if you want a silent upgrade but then you will need to check the install logs for any errors. Of course it should go without saying that you need to backup all your databases first.

One other note, according to the MSDN library instructions for this parameter: If you use the SKUUPGRADE parameter, Setup will remove all hotfix and service pack updates from the SQL Server instance being upgraded. Once the edition upgrade is complete, you must re-apply all hotfix and service pack updates.

And last note, the command as written will upgrade the default local instance of SQL Server, if you are working with a remote instance or a named or otherwise non-default instance you will need to do some spelunking in the help files. A great place to start is here which is an MSDN article on How to install SQL Server 2005 from a command line.

Your mileage may vary but my own experience was uneventful and successful. I re-applied SP1 and then the post SP1 cumulative hotfixes and I was up and running! My previously installed Standard Edition now reports that it is indeed a Developer Edition install.

Final warning, if you are using Team Foundation server and the SQL Server you are about to work with is also used to host the Team Foundation Server schema changing it to Developer edition will break Team Foundation Server which will not run on the Developer Edition. Be sure before you change the edition of you server that you think through any other cross dependencies before you pull that trigger!

Cheers,

Robert Porter