Last update: April 16th, 2017
Microsoft’s marketing department often names its products in names that don’t reveal anything about their “real” version numbers. Recently it’s mainly years, like “Visual Studio 2015” but it could be numbers which don’t correspond to the products’ internal version numbers.
As a developer, you often really want to know what the internal version of a product is. For instance, you want to understand whether a version is a minor release to an internally identical core or a new major release.
This information, apparently, is scattered around the Internet, mostly in separate sources of data and not as one comprehensive source. This is not always the case, but it is most of the time.
I’ve compiled several unified lists of several of Microsoft’s lines of products that are relevant for developers – the most prominent ones: Windows, Visual Studio, .NET, SQL Server.
If you find any mistake or have an update, I strongly encourage you to update me and I’ll update this list so it will be relevant for the long-term of course, and not serve as a one-time-but-irrelevant-as-time-goes blog post.
Windows
| Known Name | Version | Latest Build / Service Pack |
|---|---|---|
| Windows 2000 | 5.0 | Build 2195: Service Pack 4 |
| Windows XP | 5.1 | Build 2600: Service Pack 3 |
| Windows Server 2003 Windows Server 2003 R2 |
5.2 | Build 3790: Service Pack 2 |
| Windows Vista | 6.0 | Build 6002; Service Pack 2 |
| Windows Server 2008 | 6.0 | Build 6002: Service Pack 2 |
| Windows 7 | 6.1 | Build 7601; Service Pack 1 |
| Windows Server 2008 R2 | 6.1 | Build 7601: Service Pack 1 |
| Windows 8 | 6.2 | Build 9200 |
| Windows Server 2012 R2 | 6.3 | Build 9600 |
| Windows 8.1 | 6.3 | Build 9600; 8.1 with Update |
| Windows 10 | 10.0 | Build 1703 (10.0.15063.138) |
SQL Server
| Known Name | Version | Latest KB / Revision |
|---|---|---|
| SQL Server 2000 | 8.0 | 8.00.2305 |
| SQL Server 2005 SP4 | 9.0 | 9.00.5324 |
| SQL Server 2008 SP4 | 10.0 | 10.00.6547 |
| SQL Server 2008 R2 SP3 | 10.0 | Database Engine Services: 10.51.2500.0 Management Studio: 10.50.6542 |
| SQL Server 2012 SP3 | 11.0 | 11.0.6594.0 SP3 CU #8 |
| SQL Server 2014 SP2 | 12.0 | 12.0.5540.0 SP2 CU #4 |
| SQL Server 2016 SP1 | 13.0 | 13.0.4422.0 SP1 CU #2 |
| SQLocalDB 11 | 11.0 | Microsoft SQL Server 2012 (11.0.5058.0) |
| SQLocalDB 12 | 12.0 | Microsoft SQL Server 2014 (12.0.2000.8) |
| SQLocalDB 13 | 13.0 | Microsoft SQL Server 2016 (13.0.4001.0) |
| SQL Compact Edition | Lots of versions | Comprehensive list here |
Visual Studio
| Known Name | Version | Latest KB / Revision |
|---|---|---|
| Visual Studio 6 | 6.0 | Service Pack 6; 6.0.3790.0; VB6.0-KB290887-X86.exe |
| Visual Studio .NET (2002) | 7.0 | Service Pack 1; KB837234 |
| Visual Studio 2003 | 7.1 | Service Pack 1; KB918007 |
| Visual Studio 2005 | 8.0 | Service Pack 1; KB932232 |
| Visual Studio 2008 | 9.0 | Service Pack 1 Update; KB974479; 9.00.30729.1 SP |
| Visual Studio 2010 | 10.0 | Service Pack 1; KB983509; 10.0.40219.1 SP1Rel |
| Visual Studio 2012 | 11.0 | 11.0.61030.00 Update 4 |
| Visual Studio 2013 | 12.0 | 2013 Update 5 (2013.5); 12.0.40629.00 |
| Visual Studio 2015 | 14.0 | 14.0.25431.01 Update 3 |
| Visual Studio 2017 | 15.0 | 15.0.26403.3 |
.NET
Very dynamic, and now contains multiple modules such as .NET Core, .NET Native, .NET Framework, .NET Compiler Platform and more.
The latest release .NET Framework version (basically before the above partitioning introduced in what’s still called vNext) is Microsoft .NET Framework 4.7. It is preinstalled on Windows 10 Creators Update. It is currently not available for installation on earlier versions of the Windows operating system.
At this stage, I prefer to link to this quite comprehensive and Wikipedia-maintained up-to-date list of .NET versions.