Running both SQL Server 2017 Standard and SQL Server 2019 Express under Server Managment Studio

[MCI-IT]

Good Day,

I hope I am at the Correct Forum, If not can you Please Direct Me to the Correct Place to ask this Question.

First, I don't know SQL at All, just a Few of the Basics so My Apologies if this Question Sounds Stupid.

Now, we have SQL Server Management Studio v18.10 and SQL Server 2017 Standard running on it.

We want to Test SQL Server 2019 and see if we can Migrate Everything Over to it, so just to Test, we Downloaded SQL Server 2019 Express and Installed it.

No the Question is how do we Open 2019 in the Management Studio, as Soon as we Login on the Studio it still just Show 2017.

Is there a way to Host Both at the Same time or how do we get 2019 and not 2017 in the Management Studio?

I Hope this Makes Sense, If Any Further Information is Required, Please Let me know.

See Screenshots Attached of Server and Studio Configurations.

Thank You

[#2 · Accepted solution]

@MCI-IT , in the discovery report I see there are 4 instance of SQL Server installed

(Standard) = 2017
SQLEXPRESS = 2016
SQLEXPRESS01 => 2019
MSSQLSERVER2019 => 2019

First ist default, the others are named instances. We can install 1 default and up to 50 named instance on one machine and they can have different versions and different editions; see Work with multiple versions and instances - SQL Server | Microsoft Docs

To connect to a named instance you have to add the instance name with backslash to the server name. If you want to connect to SQL Express 2019, enter

ServerName\SQLEXPRESS01

in the server name field in SSMS login dialog.