This morning, Microsoft announced a new standalone SQL Server Management Studio download:
This is our first effort to release SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS) in a mechanism outside of the SQL Engine releases. Our goal is to update this frequently with new features, fixes and support for the newest SQL Server features in SQL Server Engine and Azure SQL Database.
Awww yeah! Lightweight installer, and here’s the best part: there’s a built-in check for updates.
That’s right: Microsoft might start shipping updates to SSMS outside of the regular SQL Server Service Pack scenario!
This telegraphs a couple of interesting things: first, they had to do it because Azure SQL Database ships updates much faster than SQL Server does, so this gives Microsoft a way to enable those updates in SSMS without releasing a separate service pack.
But more interestingly – to me at least – is that this means SQL Server Management Studio is now considered The Way to Manage Azure SQL Database. There isn’t a separate tool coming, nor will designer/developer tools like Visual Studio become a management tool.
SSMS is finally getting some much-needed love. Rejoice, dear readers.
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Open-sourcing it and accepting contributions would be nice. That way we could fix the most egregious usability issues. For example the weird ordering of items in the yellow plan node “popup” in execution plans. Or the flickering of the yellow popup. Or show index sizes in MB instead of pages.
SSMS actually is quite good already. I’m most annoyed with some small things. I have no large complaints at all.
Now, if only the download link didn’t 404… guess the download isn’t quite ready yet 😉
Yeap, link still broken
microsoft astounding w/ 404 complexity still…
Here is the google cached version:
http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:AFUMZ8wj9a0J:blogs.msdn.com/b/sqlreleaseservices/archive/2015/06/24/sql-server-management-studio-june-2015-release.aspx+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=ca
Did MS pull the article? I’m getting a “Not Found: Resource Not Found” message.
GISChimp – yeah, based on the text of the post, it would appear that the post was posted a little early. Love it when these things slip into the public and we can blog about ’em. 😀
On the MS Blog site, there is a link in the Data Platform header to the article in question but it is the same as the one you posted and returns “Not found”. Hmmm.
Download link is up now: https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/mt238290.aspx?f=255&MSPPError=-2147217396
Andrew – nice catch! Updated the link.
Another successful April Fool’s joke by Microsoft.
The article is back!
I’m guessing someone in MS reads Brent’s posts. 🙂
The link works for me, or it’s also on the SQL Release Services blog:
http://blogs.msdn.com/b/sqlreleaseservices/archive/2015/06/24/sql-server-management-studio-june-2015-release.aspx
So, does this mean that we might see a version of SSMS that handles high resolution desktops with scaling > 100% properly sometime soon? 😉
Stewart – survey says….no. 😀 In related news, it works perfectly in VMware Fusion on Macs, hahaha.
Yea, that is what I concluded after reading many posts from other people trying to get SSMS working on a high res-monitor on Windows 8+. I just got a new work laptop that has an ultra-high res display (2880×1620) and with the native resolution and the scaling set to 200% SSMS’s dialogs were all broken (didn’t display correctly). I spent hours fiddling and reading posts to no avail. Finally, I had to reduce my screen resolution to 1920×1080 with 100% scaling to make it work properly.
i certainly hope they fix the hi-dpi issues with ssms.
I just purchased a surface pro 4 and was totally disappointed when, after instaling SS2014, I discovered that most of the dialog boxes are next to useless on the hi dpi screen. I have to set it for a minimum of 200% (preferable 300%) because of my 76 year old eyes. At those scaling settings, te dialogs are useless! At 100% scaling or less, the entire surface pro is useless!
It is shocking to me that MS cannot get its own products to work correctly with its other products. If SSMS were subject to ADA legislation, the developers would already be in court!
Oddly, it works great on Macs since all the virtualization products already handle the HiDPI translation well, heh.
Maybe I’m just cynical, but I don’t think Microsoft would have done this if it weren’t for Azure. I don’t see anything significant that they are addressing for non-Azure users.
That is true. In a recent “SQL Server unplugged” Channel 9 video one very high up lead person said that they are overhauling SSMS in a much bigger way, though. I hope they don’t make it worse because SSMS all in all is pretty awesome.
Or am I naive because I don’t know how the competition does it? Are competing products better?
Tobi – the competing products are pretty horrific. Oracle’s the one exception, but everybody else’s management tooling is awful. SSMS is light years ahead of what anybody else in the industry has.
Mark – I totally agree. I’m glad, though, because it means that Azure is helping deliver improvements even to those of us who aren’t using it.
Hi Brent,
you should consider to add the link to your http://sqlserverupdates.com/ website (maybe in a beta section).
BTW: You can’t install SQL Server 2016 on a Windows 7 PC (only Win8 / Win10 / Server 2012) but you can install SSMS 2015 on it and use the new features as live queries (if the connected server is SQL2014+).
Thomas – great point, will do!
Funny note on this. While it is possible to install SSMS 2015 on a Windows 7 PC, it seems to be impossible to uninstall it. Still researching a solution, but when I try to uninstall I’m given a nice message stating “The operating system on this computer or its service pack level does not meet the minimum requirements…” Apparently, I met the requirements to install, but uninstall is another story…
It’s so good that you post such a useful article. Thank you for this!
Handy for SQL DBAs
http://sqlserverbuilds.blogspot.com.au/
Today IT server management is not an option, it’s an essential requirement. Poorly managed or unmanaged servers usually end up getting hacked, important data loss and downtime.
Rejoice! It supports scaled displays so I can finally work on my Surface Pro 4!