Recently my install of Management Studio decided to reset itself back to the defaults. After a bit of hunting around for the blog posts that listed some great configurations, I decided to make note of my preferred settings here, for future reference.
Open a new query page at Startup
Tools | Options | Environment | At startup: – Select Open Object Explorer and new query
Create DMV shortcuts
Tools | Options | Environment | Keyboard | Query shortcuts:
I add “select * from sys.dm_exec_sessions” and “select * from sys.dm_exec_requests” to Ctrl keys.
Display line numbers
Tools | Options | Text Editor | All Languages | Display | Line Numbers
Know where you are through colour coding
Save yourself some grief by making group connections an obvious colour (bright red!) so that you don’t execute some script on a bunch of servers accidentally.
Tools | Options | Text Editor | Editor Tab and Status Bar | Status Bar Layout and Colours | Group Connections
I usually move the status bar location to Top to make the colour even more obvious.
I also find Mladen Prajdić’s SSMS Tools Pack to be invaluable for colour-coding windows of specific servers.
More readable tabs
I find the tabbing in SSMS to be frustrating because it’s so hard to see what’s on a specific tab.
Tools | Options | Text Editor | Editor Tab and Status Bar | Tab Text – Set all to false except Include file name.
Reduce wait times
Tools | Options | SQL Server Object Explorer | Table and View Options | Value for Select/Edit Top <n> Rows
I rarely need to see 1000 rows when I do a select on a table. It’s usually just a shortcut to the query text so I can start modifying it for other purposes.
Avoid some costly mistakes
Set up a Query Template (via SSMS Tools Pack) such as “BEGIN TRAN/ROLLBACK”.
Want more than you see here? Check out Kimberly Tripp’s Favorite SSMS Options – and some gotchas and Brent Ozar’s Fixing SQL Server Management Studio’s Tab Text. Have a favourite? Let me know in the comments.
These are simply my preferences, I’m not recommending them.
