There was a time when I came into a new company and the IT guy give me bunch of data in various formats. There are MS access files, MapInfo files, Documents and many other. I don’t have any problem with all those files. But, there is one problem. I cannot open many SQL Server Backup files (.BAK) since we don’t have any running SQL Server instance. Those BAK files contain important database we need to pull out.
Fortunately, there is a program called SQL BAK Explorer. SQL BAK Explorer will read and display many important details in a SQL Server backup files. And, it does not need SQL Server instance. Simply open the SQL Server backup file and it will display many information such as:
- the source database, machine, and server name
- the SQL syntax to restore the backup file(s)
- the backup type
- the backup start and finish times
- the backup duration and speed
- the LSN details (FirstLSN, LastLSN, CheckpointLSN, DatabaseBackupLSN, and more)
- the backup name and description, if entered
- the name of the user who performed the backup
- the database files making up the database, the size of each file, and more
SQL BAK Explorer supports backup created using SQL Server 2005 and up to 2017. But, it does not support encrypted backup files.
If you need a software to explore your SQL Server backup files, try BAK Explorer. You can try this SQL BAK Explorer Full Version for 14 days. Download link is available below.
