asked
Multiple Sqlserver.exe processes running on single instance database servers.
Hi, Why on some single instance database server’s sqlserver.exe processes running multiple? Why and how multiple SQL processes started on single Instance Service? Issue details – OS- Windows Server 2003. SQL – MS SQL 2005 (Work Group Edition) SQL Log on Account- Local System Service Type- Automatic
What else is the server used for? You could have other server applications running which use their own named instance of SQL Server.
In Task Manager, when you right-click the process and look at the properties, do they all have the same Location? My local laptop installation has for example **C:\\Program Files\\Microsoft SQL Server\\MSSQL.1\\MSSQL\\Binn** as location.
For us PowerShell geeks this will pull out any process running that contains with "SQL" and pull the version and path of the exe:
Get-Process *SQL* | Format-List ProcessName, ProductVersion, Path
Get-Process *SQL* | Format-List ProcessName, ProductVersion, Path
O/S is 2003 - might not have PowerShell... good suggestion though!
@Blackhawk-17, yeah I always forget about that. I wish Microsoft would just add it to Automatic Updates, there is no reason people shouldn't put it on there :)
Do you have multiple instances installed? Either check your services console or SQL server Config Manager
As @Jonlee Lockwood says, check the Services control panel, otherwise you can try running this from a command line: sc query | find "MSSQL" You may get more information to help determine where they came from.
I can't stop myself:
Get-Service *SQL* | Format-List Name, DisplayName, Status
Get-Service *SQL* | Format-List Name, DisplayName, Status
@meltondba - sc is guaranteed to be on 2003. Of course we could also use this: tasklist /FI "SERVICES eq mssql*" /SVC /FO LIST ... again a built-in command, complete with PID
Not seeing the server, it's hard to know, but you could have a SQL Express install there as well that is running for third party application. It really could be almost anything.
If they only would pop up so that I could see them. I'm only becoming aware of them when there's a problem, and it turns out there are no backup files.
By the way, if there is SQL Server Express running, you might want to consider to not just stopping it if you don't want to have it in the system. I had a very interesting problem with one of my older desktops which I revived recently. I stopped the Express service but did not uninstall it. Because it happened to be in the list subjected to windows updates, the automagic configuration to just download and install updates caused the SP4 installation to run on the box (and sadly to reboot it afterwards) every day for few days. Since the service was configured not to start when OS starts (it was disabled), the update could not be applied after reboot so windows update picked it up again and tried to redo the install. To cure the problem I had to temporarily configure the express service to auto start so the SP4 installation could finally finish :)
Yup - a lot of vendors install SQL Express as their data repository and all of a sudden you have all these instances you weren't planning on.
