Can I get sql profiler for sql2008 for free?

Question

Is it possible to get sql profiler for sql2008 for free or you have to have a license to get it?

i.e. it won't work with sql express

Answer 1

You can get SQL Profiler with the Developer version of SQL.
But how is written three answer before:

SQL Profiler is just a GUI on top of the TRACE functionality present in all editions of SQL.

So this ExpressProfiler is a free utility.
Alberto

Answer 2

First. SQL Profiler does work with SQL Express. Second. You can get SQL Profiler with the Developer version of SQL, which is included with all MSDN licenses. However you will not be able to get it for free with SQL Express like you can with SSMS.

Answer 3

SQL Profiler is just a GUI on top of the TRACE functionality present in all editions of SQL.

http://sqlprofiler.googlepages.com/ is a free utility which takes advantage of that. Probably all that you need.

Free of registration URL to download: http://code.google.com/p/sqlexpressprofiler/

Answer 4

I have been posting this to a number of older posts since I have been hitting them looking for the same answer. Just thought it would be nice if some more recent answers were here, hopefully they will still save people some time.

The ExpressProfiler is nice, I did try it but found it to be a bit too simple for my purposes. I found this article recently, http://www.codeproject.com/Articles/784905/Real-time-Tracing-With-SQL-Server-Express, and it has downloadable demo UI that is quite complete. It is much more configurable and has a few handy features like being able to define unlimited traces that will persist all trace options as well as column order. You can sort by column and group row data.