VERSION INFO v7.0
SQL Server provides two main methods for obtaining version information 
about your database server. The first and perhaps most commonly known 
method is the @@Version global variable that SQL Server maintains.

SELECT @@Version

This displays the basic information about the current installation of 
the SQL server engine.

Microsoft SQL Server  7.00 - 7.00.842 (Intel X86)  
Mar  2 2000 06:49:37  
Copyright (c) 1988-1998 Microsoft Corporation 
Standard Edition on Windows NT 4.0 (Build 1381: Service Pack 5)

The other, lesser-known method is the extended stored procedure 
xp_msver. This procedure provides more detailed information about the 
SQL Server than @@Version.

EXEC xp_msver

The display information is in tabular format. (The example below has 
been abbreviated.)

Index  Name            Internal_Value  Character_Value 
------ --------------- --------------- ---------------- ------ 
1      ProductName     NULL            Microsoft SQL Server 
2      ProductVersion  458752          7.00.842 
3      Language        1033            English (United States)

This format makes it easy to capture the information and load it into a 
temporary table.

CREATE TABLE #t_Version ( 
  Index int null, 
  Name varchar(30) null, 
  Internal_Value int null, 
  Character_Value varchar(255) null) 
 
insert into #t_Version exec xp_msver

With this method, you can now query the temporary table rather than 
parsing the @@Version output for the value(s) you may need.