We are very excited to announce the public preview of SQL Server Management Studio 18.0. SSMS has been ported to the VS 2017 Isolated Shell, which brings with it many improvements to look and feel and accessibility. This release expands platform support to keep up with the announcements at Microsoft Ignite last week and includes bug fixes and feature updates across the board.

Download your copy of SSMS 18 public preview today.

New platform and feature support

Support for SQL 2019

Support for Azure SQL Managed Instance

Azure SQL Database support SLO/Edition Support for updated Azure SQL SKUs

Support for Always Encrypted with secure enclaves

UTF-8 support on collation dialog

Shell improvements

SSMS is based on the new VS 2017 Isolated Shell. This means a modern shell that unlocks all the accessibility features from both SSMS and VS 2017.

Smaller download size (~400 MB). This is less than half of what SSMS 17.x is.

SSMS can be installed in a custom folder. Currently, this is only available on the command line setup. Pass the extra argument to SSMS-Setup-ENU.exe, SSMSInstallRoot = C:\MyFolder

High DPI enabled by default.

Better support for multiple monitors to ensure dialogs and windows pop up on the expected monitor.

Isolation from SQL Engine. SSMS does not share components with SQL engine anymore. More isolation from SQL engine allows for more frequent updates.

Package Ids no longer needed to develop SSMS Extensions.

Existing feature improvements

Changed authentication mode from Storage Account Key to Azure AD.

AUTOGROW_ALL_FILES config option for Filegroups.

Removed “lightweight pooling” and “priority boost” options from GUI as these have been in the not recommended list for a long time.

Switched to “Windows Credential Manager” for connection dialog MRU passwords.

Exposed the “backup checksum default” property in the Default Settings Page under Server Properties dialog.

Added actual time elapsed, actual vs estimated rows under Show Plan operator node, if they are available. This will allow actual plan to be consistent with Live Query Stats plan.

Modified tooltip and added comment for Show Plan. Edit Query Button to indicate query text may be truncated if it’s over 4000 characters.

Added logic to display the “Materializer Operator (External Select)”.

Added new show plan attribute “BatchModeOnRowStoreUSed” to easily identify queries that are using the “batch-mode scan on rowstores” feature.

Rehash RTO (Estimated Recovery Time) and RPO (Estimated data loss) in SSMS AlwaysOn dashboard. Additional details here, Monitor performance for Always On Availability Groups.

SMO Scripting performance improvements Extend SMO support for Resumable Index Creation Added new event on SMO objects (“Property Missing”) to help application authors to detect SMO performance issues sooner Exposed new property DefaultBackupCheckSum on the Configuration object which maps to “backup checksum default” in server configuration

Several bug fixes in the following areas in addition to crashes/hangs: XEvents SSMS Options SSMS Editor Object Explorer Backup/Restore/Attach/Detach database General Azure SQL DB Support



For a full list of changes, see Release Notes.

We have also deprecated some features, including:

Database Diagram

TSQL Debugger

OSQL.exe

Dreplay Admin UI

Configuration Manager tools, SQL Server Configuration and Reporting Server Configuration Manager

The product may be installed side-by-side with SSMS 17.x for testing purposes. As a reminder, the use of pre-GA software in production environments is not supported.

SSMS will continue to be the flagship tool for managing and administering SQL Server on Windows environments. We will continue to make investments to fix bugs, optimize and modernize SSMS as new features get lighted up in SQL Server. We’d love to hear from you with any questions, comments or feature suggestions.