Let’s begin

Someone could ask “Why an article about how to determine the correct ISA Server version and its Service Packs – I already know my ISA Server”. This might be correct if you are the person who installed ISA Server but when you are working in a larger IT department with a larger IT staff and with many ISA Servers, things could be more complicated. So let’s go through the process, it is very easy and only tricky when you use ISA Server 2004.

ISA Server 2004

An Administrator should always see that ISA Server 2004 is installed when he opens the ISA Server Management Console. However, the first look does not tell him which ISA Server Service Pack is installed.

To determine which Service Pack is installed, you can start the ISA Server 2004 Management Console and navigate to the ISA Server object and the console tells us, that ISA Server version 4.0.2161.50 is installed – 4.0.2161.50 is ISA Server 2004 RTM (Release To Manufacturing).

Figure 1: ISA Server 2004 Product version

But what version will be displayed when you install ISA Server 2004 Service Pack 1 or newer versions? – Not good: After installing a ISA Server 2004 Service Pack, the MMC still displays ISA version 4.0.2161.50!

There must be another way to display the Service Pack version. One method is to navigate in the ISA Server Management Console to Help – About ISA Server.

Figure 2: Correct ISA Server Product version

This will display the correct ISA Server Version with its Service Packs but only if you open the MMC on the ISA Server itself. If you open the Info about ISA Server on a client with the installed ISA Server MMC SnapIn, you will only see the locally installed client version. If the client version does not have the same patch level as the ISA Server, you will see different versions.

One definite way to see the ISA Server version is to open the Control Panel – Add or Remove Programs option and you will see which ISA Server 2004 version and Service Packs is installed as you can see in the following picture.

Figure 3: ISA Server 2004 Product version and Service Pack in Control Panel

The last possibility to determine the ISA Server patch level is to open the file properties of the wspsrv.exe file. You will find the wspsrv.exe file in the ISA Server program installation directory.

Figure 4: ISA Server 2004 Product version and File version

You can see the Product Name and the version in the first line under File version.

ISA Server 2004 Version numbers

There are a number of different ISA Server versions, so I used the table from www.msisafaq.de to show you the different versions.

Table 1: ISA Server 2004 Product versions and Service Pack information

ISA 2006

An Administrator should always see that ISA Server 2006 is installed when he opens the ISA Server Management Console, but once again, at first glance you cannot see which ISA Server Service Pack is installed.

To determine,which Service Pack is installed, you can start the ISA Server 2006 Management Console and navigate to the ISA Server object and the console shows us that ISA Server version 5.0.5722.380 is installed – 5.0.5722.380 is the English ISA Server 2006 SP1 Beta.

Figure 5: ISA Server 2006 - ISA Computer details

ISA Server Computer details

Figure 6: ISA Server 2006 – Correct Product version

There must be another way to display the Service Pack version. One method is to navigate in the ISA Server Management Console to Help – About ISA Server.

Figure 7: ISA Server 2006 - Product version details

Please note:
The big difference between ISA Server 2004 and ISA Server 2006 is that ISA Server 2006 always displays the correct installed ISA Server Service Pack.

One definite way to see the ISA Server version is to open the Control Panel – Add or Remove Programs option and you will see which ISA Server 2006 version and Service Pack is installed as you can see in the following picture.

Figure 8: ISA Server 2006 Product version and Service Pack information in Control Panel

One of the other options to determine the ISA Server patch status is to display the file properties of WSPSRV.EXE in Windows Explorer. You can find the file in the ISA Server program directory.

Figure 9: ISA Server 2006 Product version and File version

You can see the Product Name and the version in the first line under File version.

ISA Server 2006 Version numbers

Table 2: ISA Server 2006 Product versions and Service Pack information

Determining the Installed MSDE Version

If you installed ISA Server 2006 with advanced logging, ISA Server will be installed with a local MSDE version. You should always install the latest Service Pack version for the MSDE to provide additional security and functionality.

The easiest way to determine the installed SQL/MSDE version is the Additional support information in control panel – Add or Remove Programs.

Figure 10: MSDE version information

Table 3: SQL version: (Source)

Conclusion

In this article I tried to show you how to determine the installed ISA Server version and the installed ISA Server Service Pack and other patch status. As you have seen, it is very easy to determine the version of your ISA Server. With that understanding it is easy to see if there are additional service packs or patches need for your system. If you are an ISA consultant, you will have a quick overview about the ISA Server patch status at customer side.