How to list the SQL Server Instances installed on a local machine? ( Only local )

Question

I would like to know if there's a way to list the SQL Server instances installed on the local computer.

SqlDataSourceEnumerator and EnumAvailableSqlServers don't do the trick as I don't need the instances that are over the local network.

Answer 1

Direct access to Windows Registry isn't the recommended solution by MS, because they can change keys/paths. But I agree that SmoApplication.EnumAvailableSqlServers() and SqlDataSourceEnumerator.Instance fails providing instances on 64-bit platforms.

Getting data from Windows Registry, keep in mind the difference in Registry access between x86 and x64 platforms. 64-bit edition of Windows stores data in different parts of system registry and combines them into views. So using RegistryView is essential.

using Microsoft.Win32;  RegistryView registryView = Environment.Is64BitOperatingSystem ? RegistryView.Registry64 : RegistryView.Registry32; using (RegistryKey hklm = RegistryKey.OpenBaseKey(RegistryHive.LocalMachine, registryView)) {     RegistryKey instanceKey = hklm.OpenSubKey(@"SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Microsoft SQL Server\Instance Names\SQL", false);     if (instanceKey != null)     {         foreach (var instanceName in instanceKey.GetValueNames())         {             Console.WriteLine(Environment.MachineName + @"\" + instanceName);         }     } } 

If you are looking for 32-bit instances on a 64-bit OS (pretty weird, but possible), you will need to look:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\Microsoft SQL Server 

Answer 2

You could call EnumAvailableSQlServers with a localOnly = True

public static DataTable EnumAvailableSqlServers(bool localOnly) 

See MSDN docs for EnumAvailableSqlServers