SSMS

Life behind a proxy server can be problematic. Not every software out there is tested correctly for proxy interaction and oftentimes the experience for the corporate user is a bit frustrating. I blogged about this before, regarding Powershell Gallery and regarding how to download and install content for the SSMS Help Viewer in SQL Server 2014 and SQL Server 2016. When I tried to update my post for SQL Server 2017, I got stuck, because my " [Read More]

A couple of years ago I blogged about Installing the SQL Server 2014 Language Reference Help from disk. With SQL Server 2016 things changed significantly: we have the new Help Viewer 2.2, which is shipped with the Management Studio setup kit. However, despite all the changes in the way help works and is shipped, I am still unable to download and install help content from the web, so I resorted to using the same trick that I used for SQL Server 2014. [Read More]

One of the most popular posts on this bog describes how to enable bitmap scaling is SSMS on high DPI displays, which is a sign that more and more people are starting to use 4K displays and are unhappy with SSMS’s behaviour at high DPI. The solution described in that post is to enable bitmap scaling, which renders graphic objects correctly, at the price of some blurriness. The good news is that starting with SSMS 16. [Read More]

Today, thanks to a customer, I discovered one of those annoying little things that can really drive you nuts. Basically, they were trying to restore a backup using the SSMS Restore Database window and they kept getting “No backupset selected to be restored” whenever a backup file was selected. You just had to select a file for restore and click OK… … to be met with an error message in the Restore Database window: [Read More]

I spent the last few weeks travelling a lot compared to my usual routine and I got quickly fed up with bringing my mobile workstation with me. My Dell precision M4600 is a powerhouse, but it’s definitely too big and too heavy for travelling, so I decided it was time to buy a small laptop just for travelling and presenting at SQL Saturdays and events around Europe. After lots of research, I pulled the trigger on a new XPS13. [Read More]

Some weeks ago I had to wipe my machine and reinstall everything from scratch, SQL Server included. For some reason that I still don’t understand, SQL Server Management Studio installed fine, but I couldn’t install Books Online from the online help repository. Unfortunately, installing from offline is not an option with SQL Server 2014, because the installation media doesn’t include the Language Reference documentation. The issue is well known: Aaron Bertrand blogged about it back in april when SQL Server 2014 came out and he updated his post in august when the documentation was finally completely published. [Read More]

The problem One of the tasks that I often have to complete is manipulate some data in Excel, starting from the query results in SSMS. Excel is a very convenient tool for one-off reports, quick data manipulation, simple charts. Unfortunately, SSMS doesn’t ship with a tool to export grid results to Excel quickly. Excel offers some ways to import data from SQL queries, but none of those offers the rich query tools available in SSMS. [Read More]

Do you use code templates in SSMS? I am sure that at least once you happened to click “New stored procedure” in the object explorer context menu. The default template for this action is a bit disappointing and the only valuable line is “SET NOCOUNT ON”. The rest of the code has to be heavily rewritten or deleted. Even if you use the handy keyboard shortcut for “Specify values for template parameters” (CTRL+SHIFT+M), you end up entering a lot of useless values. [Read More]

Personally, I hate having a dedicated administrative account, different from the one I normally use to log on to my laptop, read my email, write code and perform all the tasks that do not involve administering a server. A dedicated account means another password to remember, renew periodically and reset whenever I insist typing it wrong (happens quite frequently). I hate it, but I know I cannot avoid having it. Each user should be granted just the bare minimum privileges he needs, without creating dangerous overlaps, which end up avoiding small annoyances at the price of huge security breaches. [Read More]