How to know Database Version or Build no from a Backup File?

Generally we don’t need this info for user database but when you have to recover or restore master database then you should have exact database version or build no else you cannot recover your database like i am giving you a scenario suppose you instance is corrupted now you are not able to access your sql server instance and even you don’t have exact database version like 9.00. ****. In this case you need exact build no else you cannot recover your sql server Instance. To get this info you need a master database backup file. You can run below cmd to get this info:

Restore headeronly from disk=’D:MSSQLBackupmaster.bak’

Now output will show you lot much info like user name,LSNs,device type,server name etc but you should look into below three columns  to get exact version no of SQL Server. As per this output the version on which master database was backed up is 10.50.1600.Now you got the exact build so install sql server till this build no and restore master database easily.

SoftwareVersionMajor  SoftwareVersionMinor  SoftwareVersionBuild
10                                  50                                   1600

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