Once upon a time, I’d installed the 180-day trial version of SQL Server 2008, and prior to that I’d been running the last CTP.

The expiry time was fast approaching, and I also needed to install the Integration Services components so I figured it might be time to uninstall the trial version and install the proper licensed one instead. The main reason I’d been putting this off was I knew it was going to take a few hours of uninstall/reinstall.

So I uninstalled everything in Add/Remove Programs that looked vaguely related to SQL Server, rebooted, then installed a fresh version….

Only to see “10.0.1600.22 ((SQL_PreRelease).080709-1414 )” in the About box of SQL Server Management Studio.

Hmm.. In desperation I then uninstalled everything vaguely related to Visual Studio 2008, and then tried again…

Same result!

It was only then that I found this post in which I discovered that no, SQL_PreRelease really means RTM!

Oh well, I guess it means my Visual Studio and SQL installs are fresher, but a bit of a pain nonetheless.