database - Why does SELECT @@VERSION return previous version after installing new SQL Server

Question

First I installed SQL Server 2012 for learning. Because it doesn't take too much memory.

But later I need a SQL Server for development so I installed the latest version of SQL Server 2019 Developer edition.

After installation, I check the version of SQL Server in SSMS using

SELECT @@VERSION

and I get:

Microsoft SQL Server 2012 - 11.0.2100.60 (X64)   Feb 10 2012 19:39:15   
Copyright (c) Microsoft Corporation  
Enterprise Edition (64-bit) on Windows NT 6.2 <X64> (Build 9200:)

I don't know how to fix this.

Answer 1

If you already had SQL Server 2012 installed, then the SQL Server 2019 Developer edition wasn't installed as the "default, unnamed" instance - since there can only ever be one of those.

So when you installed SQL Server 2019, you must have chosen an instance name - use that instance name when connecting, e.g. use .INSTANCE or (local)INSTANCE to connect to the new version of SQL Server installed