• Follow @WiseOwlTraining

Configuring SQL Server Management Studio

Before you start writing SQL queries it's worth spending a little time setting up the SQL Server Management Studio environment to make query-writing as simple as possible.

Opening Management Studio

In order to change the settings in Management Studio, you first have to open it!  The screenshot below shows how to do this for a default installation of SQL Server 2008 R2.

The option for Management Studio will be in a folder similar to this one in the Start menu.

Connecting to a Server

When you first open Management Studio you'll be asked which server you'd like to connect to.  You don't have to pick one at this stage, but it makes sense to do so.

Choose which server you want to connect to and click Connect. You may have to provide a login and password depending on how the server has been configured.

At this point you should be looking at the SQL Server Management Studio environment.

This is what your screen should resemble.  The Object Explorer window on the left shows you all of the objects stored on the server you chose to connect to.

If you chose not to connect to a server when opening Management Studio you can do so now, as shown in the diagram below:

Click the Connect button and choose Database Engine... from the list.  This will open the dialog box that appears when you first open Management Studio.

The Options Dialog Box

To change most settings in Management Studio you need to use the Options dialog box.  To display it, from the menu choose: Tools -> Options...

The first page you see when opening the Options dialog box.

Now that you've got access to the Options dialog box you can start making changes to some of the settings.  The next page of this blog lists a few of the most useful things that you can change in SQL Server Management Studio.

Comments on this blog

This blog currently has no comments.