Microsoft SQL Server Management Studio Changelog

What's new in Microsoft SQL Server Management Studio 20.1

Apr 10, 2024

Drivers:
Updated SSMS to use the latest driver versions for MSODBCSQL.MSI (17.10.6.1) and MSOLEDBSQL.MSI (18.7.2). The inclusion of these new versions could require users who also have older versions of the drivers to reboot after installing SSMS 20.1. For more information, review the release notes for the Microsoft ODBC driver and the Microsoft OLE DB driver.
Updated Microsoft.Data.SqlClient version from 5.1.4 to 5.1.5.
Libraries:
Updated Server Management Objects (SMO) version to 171.31.0.
Updated Microsoft Visual C++ Redistributable version to 14.38.33135.0. The inclusion of these new versions could require users who also have older versions of the drivers to reboot after installing SSMS 20.1.
Object Explorer:
Updated Object Explorer to display table names prefixed with schema in Graph edge constraint connections.
Bug fixes:
Maintenance Plans:
Resolved issue where Backup Database Task dialog closed after selecting the Files and Filegroups radio button in the dialog.
SqlParser:
Added support for DEFAULT_DATABASE option to CREATE LOGIN T-SQL syntax when using EXTERNAL PROVIDER.
SqlParser:
Added support for NATIVE_COMPILATION and SCHEMABINDING options to CREATE TRIGGER T-SQL syntax.

New in Microsoft SQL Server Management Studio 20.0 (Mar 20, 2024)

What's new:
The connection security properties Encryption and Trust server certificate now exist on the main sign in page in the Connection dialog for easier access. For more information, see Connect with SQL Server Management Studio.
A new property, Host Name in Certificate, used with the Strict (SQL Server 2022 and Azure SQL) and Mandatory Encryption options, now exists on the Login page of the Connection dialog.
Added icons to the Query Editor status bar to indicate the encryption method used for the connection.
Added Microsoft Entra ID authentication to New Login wizard.
Updated Microsoft.Data.SqlClient version to 5.1.4, which includes support for Strict encryption and Transport Layer Security (TLS) 1.3.
Updated Server Management Objects (SMO) version to 171.30.0
Updated DacFx version to 162.1.x.
Introduced a new option, Trust server certificate for imported connections, in Tools > Options > SQL Server Object Explorer > Commands under Connection security. For more information, see Options (SQL Server Object Explorer - Commands).
Bug fixes:
The New Column Master Key dialog supports Azure Key Vault using role permissions for authorization.
Resolved an issue with SSMS crashing when trying to connect to Azure Storage because the user didn't have access to any containers within the storage account.
Fixed an issue where users couldn't change their password with Trust server certificate enabled.
Improved handling for importing and deleting certificates.
Addressed issues related to text and images in the Link wizards.
Addressed vulnerability CVE-2023-2975 for the OpenSSL library.
Known issues:
When you connect to Analysis Services with Microsoft Entra MFA, if you add a new role or open properties for a role, the message "the identity of the user being added to the role isn't fetched properly" appears.
After adding a new role, or when opening properties for an existing role, you can't use Search by name or email address to add a user.
Selecting the Design option for a view referencing a table using spatial data causes SSMS to crash.
If you launch the Database Mirroring Monitor from the mirrored node, the primary node isn't listed.
Import settings from SSMS 17 option not available.
After you remove an existing mirroring endpoint certificate on SQL Server, link creation through the wizard might fail due to unestablished trust between SQL Server and Azure SQL Managed Instance, even though all checks are successful.
Creating a linked server to Azure SQL Database with SQL Server selected as Server type connects to the master database.
Selecting the Files and Filegroups radio button in the Backup Database Task causes the dialog to close unexpectedly.
PolyBase node isn't visible in Object Explorer when you connect to SQL Server 2022 (16.x).
The Profiler menu isn't localized.
If Azure SQL Managed Instance is the publisher and SSMS is running on a machine that isn't in the same virtual network as the publisher, you aren't able to insert a tracer token via Replication Monitor.
Removed Stretch Database Wizard.
Known issues using Strict encryption 20.0:
When SQL Server is configured with Force Strict Encryption, selecting Azure Data Studio > New Query from the server or database menu generates the error, "A connection was successfully established with the server, but then an error occurred during the pre-login handshake. (provider: TCP provider, error: 0 - An existing connection was forcibly closed by the remote host.)"
Connecting to SQL Server with Strict (SQL 2022 and Azure SQL) selected for Encryption and a non-TCP/IP network protocol generates the error, "Cannot connect to SERVERNAME. A connection was successfully established with the server, but then an error occurred during the pre-login handshake. (provider: Shared Memory Provider, error: 15 - Function not supported) (Microsoft SQL Server, Error: 50) The request is not supported"
When SQL Server is configured with Force Strict Encryption, connection to the server from the Database Tuning Advisor isn't supported.
When you connect to a server with Strict (SQL Server 2022 and Azure SQL) encryption, modifying an existing maintenance plan generates the error "Failed to connect to SERVERNAME. (Microsoft.SqlServer.ConnectionInfo) A connection was successfully established with the server, but then an error occurred during the login process. (provider: SSL Provider, error: 0 - The target principal name is incorrect.)"
When SQL Server is configured with Force Strict Encryption, connection to the server from Profiler isn't supported, and the error "Cannot connect to SERVERNAME. Class not registered (pfutil)" is generated.
When you connect to a server with Strict (SQL Server 2022 and Azure SQL) encryption and MSOLEDBSQL version 19 installed, traces can't be saved to, or loaded from, a database table.
When you connect to a server with Strict (SQL Server 2022 and Azure SQL) encryption, selecting Start Powershell from a node in Object Explorer generates the error "SQL Server PowerShell provider error: Could not connect to SERVERNAME. [Failed to connect to server SERVERNAME. --> A connection was successfully established with the server, but then an error occurred during the pre-login handshake. (provider: TCP Provider, error: 0 - An existing connection was forcibly closed by the remote host.) --> An existing connection was forcibly closed by the remote host]".
When SQL Server is configured with Force Strict Encryption, you can't view the SQL Server ERRORLOG files via Object Explorer, or executing master.dbo.sp_enumerrorlogs or sys.xp_enumerrorlogs via the Query Editor.

New in Microsoft SQL Server Management Studio 19.3 (Jan 11, 2024)

New in Microsoft SQL Server Management Studio 19.2 (Nov 14, 2023)

The installation of SSMS installs Azure Data Studio 1.47.0.
Added support for secure enclaves with Azure SQL Database in the New Database dialog, Database Properties dialog, and Always Encrypted Wizard.
Improved performance for the Always Encrypted Wizard.
Added the Page Verify database option on the Options page within Database Properties.
Updated SSMS to use the latest driver versions for MSODBCSQL.MSI (17.10.5.1) and MSOLEDBSQL.MSI (18.6.7). The inclusion of these new versions could require users who also have older versions of the drivers to reboot after installing SSMS 19.2.
References to Azure Active Directory (Azure AD) updated to Microsoft Entra. See Azure AD is Becoming Microsoft Entra ID for details.
Updated F1 links for the Always Encrypted and Additional Connection Parameters pages in the Connection dialog.
Added support for Watch Live Data for event sessions created in Azure SQL Database and Azure SQL Managed Instance. For Azure SQL Database, you must specify the database name in the Connect to database field in the Connection Properties tab of the Connection dialog, see Connect to Server (Additional Connection Parameters Page) Database Engine for details. The ability to Watch Live Data is currently in preview.
Introduced ability to use the XEvent Profiler for Azure SQL Database. For Azure SQL Database, you must specify the database name in the Connect to database field in the Connection Properties tab of the Connection dialog, see Connect to Server (Additional Connection Parameters Page) Database Engine for details. The ability to use XEvent Profiler is currently in preview.
Exposed the histogram target for event sessions in Azure SQL Database.
Updated Import Flat File wizard to improve file encoding detection.
Introduced on-demand logging of Azure API calls from SSMS enabling customer-facing monitoring and troubleshooting for Azure-connected features, which can be accessed within Tools -> Options -> Output Window. See Options (Output Window - General) for more information.
Updated Help -> Technical Support and Help -> Send Feedback to direct to appropriate links.
Added support for creating a Ledger database in Azure SQL Managed Instance.
Improved wizard for performing failover on Managed Instance link. Supports unidirectional failover to Azure and bi-directional failover between SQL Server 2022 and Azure SQL Managed Instance.
Improved wizard for creating the link between SQL Server and Azure SQL Managed Instance. Supports link creation from SQL Server to Azure SQL Managed Instance and from Azure SQL Managed Instance to SQL Server 2022.
Improved wizard for testing connectivity between SQL Server and Azure SQL Managed Instance. Creates a temporary testing endpoint if none exists and can be invoked from a database replica on either SQL Server or Azure SQL Managed Instance.
Always On High Availability menu is now available in Object Explorer for Azure SQL Managed Instance and lists established Managed Instance links.
Introduced Azure SQL resources browser in linked servers wizard facilitating linked servers setup for Azure SQL Managed Instance.
Reduced load time for the New Database dialog in Azure SQL Database.
Added support for the External File Format node under External Resources node for Azure SQL Database.
Introduced connection pooling for Intellisense to reduce the number of new connections made and keep connections open between refreshes.
The IS Deployment Wizard now supports the Microsoft Entra Interactive Authentication Login method for Project Deployment.
Bug fixes:
Addressed issues with keyboard focus landing in the incorrect location when classifying data, and improved color contrast in the View Facets dialog.
Improved the screen reader for status messages, and for the automatic button in the Options page in Database Properties. The screen reader was also improved when reading the database name text within the Permissions page in Database Properties.
Improved Always Encrypted wizard to no longer allow the option to encrypt Ledger and history tables.
Fixed error 'Cannot read property AllowEnclaveComputations' when using the Always Encrypted Wizard in SQL Server 2016 and SQL Server 2017.
Addressed issue where Always Encrypted Wizard fails when a randomly encrypted column (using an enclave enabled key) already exists with an index on the column.
Updated Always Encrypted Wizard to preserve table ownership for encryption and decryption operations.
Fixed Always Encrypted Wizard to not allow the unsupported behavior of encrypting computed columns.
Updated default value for Encrypt Connection to False when a server is selected after using < browse for more… > in the connection dialog.
Updated Is Ledger Database option to be read-only.
Fixed exception generated when using Extended Events in Azure SQL Database in a database with a catalog collation that differs from the server collation.
Updated start menu entry to display SQL Server Management Studio 19.
Fixed displaying of SQL Managed Instance hardware generations when accessing resource properties.
Fixed 4k display problem in New Filegroup dialog.
Addressed inability to import a dacpac file from, or export a dacpac file to, an Azure Storage Container/blob.
Added support for Microsoft Entra users when importing a bacpac file.
Improved SSMS installer to address scenarios where setup-related registry keys are partially removed and installation hangs with 'Loading packages. Please wait...'.
Updated installer to properly update native binaries when upgrading from earlier versions of SSMS 19.x
Updated installer to no longer uninstall native driver SDKs (MSODBCSQL and MSOLEDBSQL) when the driver version on the machine is less than the one installed by SSMS. See Installation of SSMS 19.1 removes SQL_SNAC_SDK registry key after installing MS SQL Server 2022 standard edition.
Fixed error when using $PARTITION.partition_function_name(expression) syntax.
Fixed Maintenance Plan Wizard to include Finish button after navigating through the configuration of a maintenance plan.
Addressed behavior where Microsoft Entra users in Azure SQL Database are prompted for credentials when modifying a stored procedure, even though the user is authenticated. See SSMS 19 forgets connection when clicking 'modify' on a stored procedure from Object Explorer and Authentication Issues.
Resolved error 'Cannot show requested dialog.' when trying to view properties for a Microsoft Entra database user in Azure SQL Managed Instance.
Updated database role mapping to default to public as the only role for new logins.
Fixed error 'Object reference not set to an instance of an object.' when viewing properties for a server role or properties for domain login, in SQL Server 2017.
Removed menu options to create a new key, constraint, trigger, index or statistic on a dropped Ledger table.
Added support for Edit Top N Rows scripting menu option when a table's column names are keywords such as ALTER, MERGE, PRECISION, etc. See SSMS Edit top 200 rows error: Incorrect syntax near the keyword 'merge'.
Updated logic in Object Explorer to only execute sp_verify_dtc_configuration for Azure SQL Managed Instance. See SQL Server Management Studio 19.1 DTC status node causes error reports when logging enabled on message 2812 on on-premises SQL installations.
Fixed XML error 'Instance validation error: 'CONCAT' is not a valid value for ArithmeticOperationType.' when viewing an execution plan for a query with double pipe (||) syntax.
Fixed error 'When executing sp_adddistributor for a remote Distributor, you must use a password. The password specified for the @password parameter must be the same when the procedure is executed at the Publisher and at the Distributor.' when configuring a Remote Distributor for Replication.
Addressed error 'Property Password cannot be changed or read after a connection string has been set' when adding a SQL Server subscriber in the New Subscription Wizard dialog. See SSMS 19 - Issue while connecting to subscriber during replication configuration.
Resolved issue where Replication Publication Wizard couldn't support two objects with identical names added as articles in the same publication.
Added support for Replication Monitor with Azure SQL Managed Instance.
Resolved issue where Replication Monitor connected using Windows Authentication only.
Added ability to use Microsoft Entra Service Principal Authentication for Replication Monitor.
Fixed error 'An error occurred during local report processing' when drilling into the blue bar in the CPU utilization report.
Updated results grid to respect the user-specified setting Maximum Characters Retrieved when selecting output from JSON data types.

New in Microsoft SQL Server Management Studio 19.1 (Jun 28, 2023)

What's new:
The installation of SSMS installs Azure Data Studio 1.44.
Added support for secure enclaves and in-place encryption in the Always Encrypted Wizard. See Configure column encryption using Always Encrypted Wizard.
Introduced visibility to the status of the Distributed Transaction Coordinator (DTC) service for Azure SQL Managed Instance. Object Explorer can be used to determine if DTC is enabled on the Azure SQL Managed Instance (within the Management node). See Distributed Transaction Coordinator (DTC) for Azure SQL Managed Instance.
Added capability to restore backup files from S3-compatible storage to SQL Server 2022 and Azure SQL Managed Instance.
Updated File Version for ssms.exe to align with product version.
Removed deprecated hardware from the list of available service-level objects.
Changed the system browser setting, within Tools > Options > Azure Services, to default to True. The external browser will be used, instead of the legacy embedded browser.
Removed Vulnerability Assessment from SSMS.
Added Network Checker wizard, providing the capability to test the network connection and ports prior to creating the link.
Added an advanced network troubleshooting capability within the existing link creation wizard. This provides the capability to troubleshoot network connectivity issues while link creation is in progress.
Removed script header text when selecting the top 1000 rows. See Remove the /****** Script for SelectTopNRows command from SSMS ******/ comment when "Select Top 1000 Rows.
Added ability for users to choose the version of PowerShell to use when launched from SSMS.
Introduced more PowerShell options within Tools > Options > SQL Server Object Explorer > Commands. For more information, visit Options (SQL Server Object Explorer - Commands).
Bug fixes:
Introduced multiple screen reader improvements in the installation window and on the main page.
Addressed issue where attaching a database with a log file that did not reside in the default directory displayed the message "Transaction log file not found. A new empty log will be created."
Fixed controls that were incorrectly disabled in "New Linked Servers" wizard and prevented customers from creating a linked server using the MSOLEDBSQL driver.
Addressed inability to configure Integration Services tasks in a SQL Server Agent Job in Azure SQL Managed Instance. See Configuration of SSIS Task for Agent Job in SSMS 19.0.1 Does Not Work in Azure SQL Managed Instance.
Updated database backup dialog to enable "OK" button when connect to an Availability Group via the Listener or IP address.
Fixed an issue where an expired Active Azure Directory refresh token cause SSMS to crash.
Addressed intermittent application crash when closing SSMS immediately after connection dialog closes.
Updated authentication process for an alias-based email to allow the authentication token for subsequent connections for the same login.
Resolved freeze in SSMS that occurred when trying to set Microsoft Information Protection Policy.
Fixed issue that did not permit viewing the properties of a full text index.
Delayed the initialization of the output window to prevent slow SSMS startup.
Added support for SORT_IN_TEMPDB T-SQL syntax when creating a primary key using ALTER TABLE.
Updated Intellisense to identify invalid index operations for ALTER TABLE T-SQL syntax.
Introduced support for SQL Server 2022 new compression algorithm for backups.
Added Intellisense support for new functions introduced in SQL Server 2022 (for example, JSON_ARRAY, ISJSON, WINDOW, BIT_COUNT, etc.).
Updated T-SQL script generated by the wizard to enclose the certificate name.
Resolved a crash that occurred when accessing the Permission table of an existing External Data Source or External File Format.
Connections from Azure Data Studio.
Resolved inability to open properties page for a local publication under the Local Publications node in Object Explorer. SeeSSMS 19.0.1 cannot open Properties dialog for local publications.
Resolved error "Value was either too large or too small for an Int32" when creating a publication that contains two different object types with the same name.
Addressed error "Attempt to retrieve data for object failed for Server 'server_name_here'" when editing a new job after scripting an action to a job.
Fixed inability to generate scripts for tables from selected wizards.
Resolved inability to connect using Azure SSIS Integration runtime.
Fixed issue that prevented deleting a container from an Azure storage account.
Fixed issue with application hanging when editing a NVARCHAR(255) column in a table. See SSMS v18.12.1 (also) crashes in edit mode when update a field (varchar(255)) of specific record.
Addressed incorrect information displayed when editing data in a table that contains a period (.) in an Azure SQL Database. See SSMS Table in Azure - Design shows < Unknown >.

New in Microsoft SQL Server Management Studio 19.0.2 (Mar 14, 2023)

New in Microsoft SQL Server Management Studio 19.0.1 (Feb 2, 2023)

New in Microsoft SQL Server Management Studio 19.0 (Jan 26, 2023)

What's new:
SSMS 19.0 is the first release that is fully aware of SQL Server 2022 (compatibility level 160).
The installation of SSMS installs Azure Data Studio 1.41.
Improved keyboard navigation and screen reader text in the data classification window.
Added the ability to explicitly configure an attestation protocol in the "Connect To Server" dialog when using Always Encrypted with secure enclaves (column encryption).
Connections to relational SQL instances now support Azure Active Directory Service Principal, Azure Active Directory Managed Identity and Azure Active Directory Default authentication methods. “Default” uses a series of possible sources for authentication, including environment variables, Azure Managed Identity, the user’s shared token cache, Visual Studio, Azure CLI, and Azure PowerShell. For more information, visit: Options (Azure Services)
Added support for SQL 2022 actions.
Changed to Microsoft.Data.SqlClient.
Added support for Contained Always On Availability Groups.
Improvements to Data Classification user interface.
Added support for increased nonclustered index size (up to 1700 bytes), originally made available in SQL Server 2016, to allow for expanded index recommendations.
Added a new page, Tools > Options > Output Window, to allow users to control what window channels appear in the Output window. See [Options Output Window - General) for more information.
Removed references to Azure Germany from SSMS.
Added support for import/export of a bacpac or dacpac created from a database with LEDGER = ON.
Added support for Ledger feature Database ledger. For more information, visit What is the database ledger?.
Introduced rollback support if selected tasks fail in the MI Link wizard.
The Maintenance Plan node is now available in Object Explorer.
Dropped Columns folder now exists under the Columns folder for Ledger tables, which have been altered to remove one or more columns.
Removed “Generate PowerShell Script from In-Memory OLTP Migration.
Improved checks for open connections.
Added ellipses button to Residual property for Merge Join operator. See SSMS: Add ellipsis button to Residual property for Merge Join operator.
Added option in Tools > Options > Query Execution to not display the “querying transaction count” window when closing a query window. See SSMS - Querying transaction count - Async.
Updated user interface for improved accessibility.
Added support for permissions introduced in SQL Server 2022 and SQL Server 2019.
Compatibility level defaults to 160 when scripting.
The showplan XML schema has been updated.
Added support for Hyperscale Optimized Query Processing.
Added DOPFeedbackAdjusted query plan attribute.
Removed dependency on SQL Server Native Client (SNAC/SQLNCLI) from SSMS. Visit Support Policies - SQL Server Native Client for more information.
Added support for the TRIM function.
Bug fixes:
Fixed accessibility issue when navigating in the data classification window.
Fixed issue where SSMS terminated unexpectedly when viewing a query plan from Activity Monitor.
Connection to Analysis Services is now available.
Addressed issue where users couldn't sign in to the Column Master Key dialog after signing out.
Fixed the issue when connecting to the Availability Group Dashboard for an AG on SQL Server 2016, which resulted in "unknown property ClusterType" error.
Added ability to create a NUL backup device against SQL Server 2017.
Provided ability to view SQL ERRORLOGs from Central Management Servers before SQL 2022.
Increased width of Column Master Key name in the rotation dialog, so the full name is visible.
Fixed an issue with authentication that doesn't use Azure Resource Manager and Microsoft Information Protection.
Addressed issue with logging into Azure with a non-SQL authenticated on a machine not joined to a domain.
Fixed the log provider type error, which occurred when copying a database using The SQL Management Object method.
Resolved error generated when restoring a backup to an existing database. See Unexpected behavior by SSMS.
Added ability to ignore unexpected elements in showplan XML when generating recommendations.
Resolved failure to populate the tuning log table issue.
Implemented security fixes, including replacing ZeroMemory with SecureZeroMemory.
Restored ability to deploy an extracted dacpac to a database via the Deploy Data-Tier Application option.
Fixed problem with leaking connections in MI Link.
Updated size of subscription dropdown in the login to Azure pane to properly display subscription names.
Updated display to show Azure sign-in options correctly.
Improved icon display when viewing Microsoft Information Protection in older versions of SQL Server.
SSMS no longer crashes using the Create View UX to create a view with invalid syntax.
No longer display Ledger objects if not supported by the platform.
Added support for Azure SQL Managed Instance partitioned tables in the Manage Partition Window UX.
Added ability to connect to a Power BI Datamart.
Fixed issue with audible notification occurring when closing a query window. See SSMS 18.11.1 Beeps When I Close a Query Window.
Fixed connection issue for a multi-server query with multiple registered servers in the same folder.
Fixed error "Merge publications can't be created from this database until the compatibility level is set to 70 or higher." when using the publication wizard to create a new merge publication.
Added missing database permissions.
Added ability to Script as Insert for DW.
The Queued status is now shown for queued jobs in SQL Agent.
Addressed CREATE TABLE scripting failure after adding datetime masking for a column.
Fixed incorrect syntax for DATE_BUCKET function.
Added missing options for CREATE USER and CREATE LOGIN.
The "Schedule..." menu item is now visible in the Azure SSIS Catalog.
Created consistent naming for Synapse offerings in SSMS.
Fixed an issue where reading target data for event sessions whose name overlaps with another session name caused data from the incorrect event session to appear in the viewer.

New in Microsoft SQL Server Management Studio 19.0 Preview 3 (Aug 12, 2022)

New in Microsoft SQL Server Management Studio 18.12.1 (Jun 22, 2022)

New in Microsoft SQL Server Management Studio 18.12 (Jun 9, 2022)

New in Microsoft SQL Server Management Studio 18.11.1 (Mar 9, 2022)

New in Microsoft SQL Server Management Studio 18.11 (Feb 25, 2022)

New Item:
Azure Data Studio installation integration Installation of SSMS installs Azure Data Studio 1.34.0.
Data Classification:
Updated user interface Modified the Data Classification UI panel to allow users to select specific Schema & Table to display classified columns.
Updated the Add Classification pane to allow users to add new classifications for columns that are not yet classified.
Added a new category, All Unclassified, in the Column drop down of the Add Classification page.
Updated the Recommendations pane to allow Save selected recommendations directly after scanning the entire database.
General SSMS:
Added a dialog box to display the status of an extended open transaction check when closing a T-SQL Query Editor tab.
Profiler:
Added support for trace files from Analysis Services version 16.0.
Added ability to carry over the password from an existing connection when starting SQL Profiler from SSMS.
Bug fixes:
Accessibility:
Fixed focus order for ease of navigation and corrects names read by screen reader in View Facets window.
Improved names read by Screen Readers in Database properties window.
Fixed contrast and accessible names in Data Classification Report.
Multiple Screen reader fixes in the Data Classification Pane.
Fixed issue with loss of focus indication in Data Classification Pane.
Always Encrypted:
Fixes issue with the New Column Master Key wizard freezing up when creating Always Encrypted column master key using Azure Key Vault as the key store, with the key vault having any of the Rotate key permissions set.
Analysis Services:
Updated Analysis Services dependencies.
General SSMS:
Fixed icon consistency for temporal tables.
Fixed an issue where SSMS could show an error dialog with an unhelpful message (e.g. "syntax error ( *EngineEdition != 11)" ).
Updated Technical Support URL to point to sqlfeedback site.
Fixed issue with SSMS crashing due to incorrect grid width.
Fixed issue with arithmetic overflow error in backup system query.
Import/Export Data-Tier Application:
Resolved issue with Bacpac wizard failing when browsing storage accounts.
Ledger Tables Ledger objects are visuallly indicated as such in Object Explorer, history tables are nested under their respective ledger tables, and template ledger table scripts have been added.
Profiler:
Fixed an issue where SSMS was not able to start SQL Profiler when spaces existed between the server name and its port number.
SQL Agent (Managed Instance):
Fixed an issue that prevented creating or adding a step to new or existing SQL Agent job. See SSMS error while editing job step.
Showplan:
Ability to zoom in and out of plans with CTRL + mousewheel. See SQL Server user feedback.
SMO/Scripting:
Added support to script External Streaming Jobs when scripting Databases.
SSMS Setup:
Fixed an issue in the Analysis Services deployment wizard for the JPN SSMS executable.
Fixed an issue where SSMS setup could fail with an 'Element not found (0x80070490)" [Failed to find expected public key in certificate chain].
Fixed an issue to support SSMS migrations to later versions.

New in Microsoft SQL Server Management Studio 18.10 (Oct 6, 2021)

New in Microsoft SQL Server Management Studio 18.9.2 (Jul 16, 2021)

New in Microsoft SQL Server Management Studio 18.9.1 (Apr 21, 2021)

New in Microsoft SQL Server Management Studio 18.9 (Apr 16, 2021)

New items:
Always Encrypted:
Updated the New Column Master Key and New Column Encryption Key dialogs to support provisioning and managing column master keys stored in Azure Key Vault Managed HSMs.
Always Encrypted:
Enabled specifying a key length when generating column master keys in Azure Key Vault.
Always Encrypted:
Improved diagnostics for provisioning and managing column master keys stored in Azure Key Vault.
Azure Data Studio installation integration:
Installation of SSMS installs Azure Data Studio 1.27.0.
Azure SQL DB:
Improved the diagnostic reporting when an error occurs while interacting with Azure.
General SSMS:
Added command /resetuserdata to ssms.exe, which resets the user data including the "Most Recently Used" lists.
General SSMS:
Updated MSODBC and OLEDB drivers installed with SSMS. The updated version to MSODBC notably adds a workaround to connection error AADSTS530000 (AAD configuration with Conditional Access policies that would require Windows Account Manager). See Using Azure Active Directory for more information.
IntelliSense/Editor:
Added support for greatest and least in IntelliSense
IntelliSense/Editor:
Added support for BACKUP_STORAGE_REDUNDANCY syntax (CREATE/ALTER DATABASE).
ShowPlan:
Always show Estimated Number of Rows for All Executions property
Bug fixes in 18.9:
Accessibility:
Fixed issues in narrator: Items order for New Column Master Key UI to move in a logical order from top to bottom, Narrator focus order on Filter Settings.
Always Encrypted:
Fixed the Always Encrypted wizard to not include a port number in key paths for column master keys stored in Azure Key Vault. The bug caused failures in the ODBC and PHP drivers that did not expect port numbers in key paths.
Always On Availability Group:
Fixed in issue where the "Add New Availability Group" Wizard does not join AG databases into new AG automatically on secondary replica.
Auditing:
Fixed an issue where SSMS was throwing an error dialog when trying to bring up the Properties on Audit Specification.
Auditing:
Fixed an issue were some Audit Specifications wizards and property dialogs where not working properly on some localized versions of SSMS (e.g. Create, Japanese).
Azure SQL DB:
Fixed an issue that was causing the "Create firewall rule" to fail in some cases.
Fixed an issue where the "Properties" dialog on a Table was displaying the incorrect server name (local machine instead of the Azure SQL DB server name).
Fixed an issue that was causing the "Create firewall rule" to fail when the server name had invalid characters (such as capital letters) in the name.
Import/Export Data-Tier Application:
Fixed in issue where importing a bacpac into SQL Express may fail. See SQL Server user feedback.
General SSMS:
Fixed a crash (in the Visual Studio Shell) that was causing SSMS to crash when re-docking tabs. See SQL Server user feedback
Fixed an issue in "Browse folder" dialog that was causing SSMS to hang.
Fixed an issue where Object Explorer can lock up the UI thread, and ultimately cause the UI to freeze (and the user to have to hard close the SSMS.
Addressed issue where there is no option available in SSMS to rebuild a clustered columnstore index online. SSMS offers an online ON checkbox on the UI, where we can select if the particular index has to be built online.
Fixed the logic to page the user to a proper page in most error dialogs originating from exception at the SQLClient (driver) level. Previously, for almost all the error/exceptions, the help button was always tasking the user to a non-existing page.
Fixed issues around the "Server Properties / Processor" UI where SSMS is SSMS shows incorrect CPU Processor information or an error similar to "An item with the same key has already been added." See SQL Server user feedback and another SQL Server user feedback.
Fixed errors that may show up while resetting settings. See SQL Server user feedback.
Fixed an issue that was causing SSMS to throw an error message when trying to use the "PresentOn" feature in QuickLaunch. Also, added back the "PresentOff " functionality, which resets the UI to its regular size.
Fixed the logic that prevents the creation of a (clustered) columnstore index, which was overly restrictive for newer versions of SQL Server. See SQL Server user feedback.
Fixed an issue where SSMS was displaying an incorrect error message when changing the connection of an editor window to DAC ("Dedicated Admin Connection"). The error message was misleading in asserting that the connection was not successful, when indeed it was. Note: while the error has been removed, due to the nature of DAC, keep in mind that: (1) IntelliSense experience will be significantly limited (2) SSMS will still block the Object Explorer experience when connecting using DAC.
High DPI/Scaling:
Fixed an issue where the Data Collection Wizard could UI could result in being clipped on High DPI monitors (at 150% scaling).
Fixed an issue where DB Mirroring security wizard may render poorly on High DPI (at 150% scaling).
Fixed an issue with the "New Job Schedule" dialog which was rendering poorly on High DPI (4K monitors and 200% scaling).
Fixed an issue with the "New Session" (XEvents) where some elements of the UI were truncated on High DPI (4K monitors and 200% scaling).
Import Flat File Fixed issue where some messages displayed by the Import Flat File wizard are not localized.
IntelliSense/Editor:
Updated IntelliSense to display more useful information on built-in functions TODATETIMEOFFSET and SWITCHOFFSET.
Log Shipping Wizard:
Fixed in issue where Log Shipping Wizard may throw an error "Cannot show requested dialog" when clicking on Edit Job for Transaction Log Backup/Copy/Restore Setting Tab.
Log Viewer:
Addressed an issue where on some locales (e.g. Korean) some UI elements looked truncated/clipped.
Maintenance Plans:
Fixed an issue where SQL Server Management Studio 15.0.18338.0 can't explore "Expression" property in Maintenance plan. See SQL Server user feedback.
Query Tuning Advisor:
Fixed an issue where an error message like "User does not have enough permissions." was displayed when trying to use the "New Database Upgrade Session" wizard on a database containing a dot in the name. See SQL Server user feedback.
SMO/Scripting:
Fixed script generation for DW databases where it only worked if the object explorer was connected to logical master instead of the user database.
SSMS Setup:
Fixed an issue where SSMS Setup was not properly executing the Post-Install Custom Action, thus not running "ssms.exe /setup". This is believe to be the cause for some sporadic issues when SSMS is started after an upgrade (see known issue session for AS).
Vulnerability Assessment:
Disabling menu options "Tasks -> Vulnerability Assessment" for Azure SQL databases and adding collapsible message tip for better user experience for Azure SQL VM users.
XEvent UI:
Fixed capability to filter Extended Events using the event name instead of id. Supports the use of map_value column instead of map_key in wait_type filter predicate as the key value is subjected to change during version upgrade. Originally added in SSMS 18.8.

New in Microsoft SQL Server Management Studio 18.5.1 (Jun 9, 2020)

New in Microsoft SQL Server Management Studio 18.5 (Apr 7, 2020)

What's new in 18.5:
Analysis Services Added support for Power BI endpoint in Analysis Services - matching functionality of Azure Analysis Services.
Analysis Services Profiler: added support for Analysis Services Trace Definition 15.1.
Data Classification Added a button to the VA scan result view, in order to remediate data classification rule by going to the data classification pane.
Data Classification Added support for sensitivity rank in Data Classification.
Hyperscale Added support for Import Data-Tier Application (.bacpac) to SQL Azure HyperScale.
Integration Services Support executing SSIS Package from file system in MI Agent Job.
Integration Services Made user-friendly improvements in configuring Azure-enabled DTExec to invoke SSIS package executions on Azure-SSIS Integration Runtime.
Integration Services Support connecting Azure-SSIS integration runtime and managing or executing SSIS packages in package stores.
Integration Services Support migrating on-premise SSIS agent jobs to ADF pipelines and triggers.
Integration Services Made an improvement for the user experience of exporting SSIS projects from SSIS DB. Compared with the old Export, which loaded and upgraded packages in the SSIS project, the new version-independent Export won't load and upgrade packages in the SSIS project. Instead, it keeps packages in the projects as they are in SSIS DB except changing protection level to EncryptSensitiveWithUserKey.
SMO/Scripting Added new DwMaterializedViewDistribution property to View object.
SMO/Scripting Removed support for Feature Restriction (this preview feature has been removed from SQL Azure and SQL on-prem).
SMO/Scripting Added Notebook as a destination for Generate Scripts wizard.
SMO/Scripting Added support for SQL On Demand.
SMO/Scripting SQL Assessment API - Platform, Name, and engineEdition fields can now contain usual comma-separated lists (platform: [Windows, Linux]), not only regular expressions (platform: /Windows|Linux/)
SMO/Scripting SQL Assessment API - Added 13 assessment rules. For more details, go to GitHub).
Bug fixes in 18.5:
Accessibility SSIS ADF / New Schedule: fixed an issue where the focus order is not logical in the scan mode of narrator under New Schedule wizard.
Accessibility Stretch database wizard: fixed an issue where the screen reader does not inform about the name of the query table when providing information about the table.
Analysis Services Fix cached connection when scripting in AS with AAD connection.
Always On Fixed an issue where the first database added to Always On AG does not join correctly.
Always On Fixed an issue where an error was displayed when trying to display the dashboard when connected to a Big Data Cluster endpoint.
Auditing Fixed an issue where the Audit logs merges window crashes when there's a folder with an empty name in the root folder of the storage account.
Auditing Fixed an issue where the Audit logs merge window doesn't show all servers when there are too many items in the root of the container.
Data Clarification Fixed an issue where the Data Classification wizard won't open for databases with large number of tables.
Data Clarification We are now enforcing different GUIDs for every label/infoType and GUID's structure in the validation process.
Data Clarification Remove classification process in SqlServer2019.
Data Clarification Correcting the previous validation tests (adding rank, removing the illegal property InformationTypes) and adding new ones for the first two points.
Data Clarification The button just above the classified columns table now minimizes the recommendations panel, as it says.
General SSMS Updating the version of MSODBC and MSOLEDB drivers.
General SSMS Addressed at least two common sources hangs and crashes in SSMS.
General SSMS Addressed one more case where Restore dialog hangs when selecting the Browse button.
General SSMS Fixed New Database GUI for SQL On Demand.
General SSMS Fixed New External Table... and New External Data Source... templates for SQL On Demand.
General SSMS Fixed database properties, connection properties, hiding reports and rename for SQL On Demand.
General SSMS Always Encrypted: Fixed an issue where the key name dropdown becomes read-only on selecting new enclave enabled key.
General SSMS Cleaned up the Database Property Options grid, which was showing two Miscellaneous Categories.
General SSMS Fixed an issue where the scroll bar started from middle in "Database Properties Options" grid.
General SSMS Fixed an issue that was causing SSMS to crash when opening .sql file while connected to Analysis Services server.
General SSMS Connection Dialog: fixed an issue where unchecking the "Remember Password" does not work.
General SSMS Fixed an issue where credentials associated to Server/Users are always remembered. See UserVoice 37875172.
General SSMS Fixed issue where occasionally Editor windows was not properly refreshed. This is achieved by disabling the hardware acceleration in Tools > Options > Environment. See UserVoice 37474042.
General SSMS Fixed an issue where Azure Active Directory authentication was not working through a proxy.
High DPI/Scaling Fixed an issue where the controls on the Index properties could be incorrectly rendered (buttons overlapping grid). See UserVoice 36030424.
High DPI/Scaling Fixed multiple issues in Database Properties dialog, which might show clipped controls on 4K monitors.
High DPI/Scaling Fixed Publication and Subscription Wizards on 4k displays.
High DPI/Scaling Minor fix on New Audit Server Specification page.
High DPI/Scaling Fixed 4k display issue on High Availability Wizard.
High DPI/Scaling Fixed an issue where the user was not able to add a target in an Xevent New Session window + Set Session Event Filters in Xevent Session Wizard when display scaling at 125%.
High DPI/Scaling Fixing an issue where controls on the Backup Database to URL UI render out of sight under scaling above 100%.
Import flat file Updated Flat File Import Wizard to allow check all for the allow null column. See UserVoice 38027137.
Object Explorer Fixed an issue where Object Explorer could display incorrect information when connection strings are used to connect in Connection Dialog.
Object Explorer Fixed an issue where OE was slow in expanding tables for databases with several thousands tables (20k+).
Query Store UI Fixed TRC report calculate execution count (for wait time metric) as the sum of execution counts for each individual wait category, which is incorrect. But for a single execution of query it will be registered for each of the wait category the query waited for. So, if TRC just sums it across the wait category it will bloat the execution count. Actually it should be the Max across the wait_category.
Query Store UI Fixed TRC detailed view returns incorrect data when result set is filtered on top x. This happens because the query uses multiple common table expressions, which are then joined together to create the final result set. If top x is pushed into CTE, it sometimes can filters out the required rows. This can sometimes make the result set non-deterministic. The fix is to not push top x clause to CTEs.
Query Store UI Fixed Plan summary in both - grid or chart view needs last query execution wait time. Absence of this column is breaking the query. This change set will add this column to the wait stats CTE.
ShowPlan Improved how SSMS displays estimated row counts for operators with multiple executions: (1) Modified Estimated Number of Rows in SSMS to "Estimated Number of Rows Per Execution"; (2) Added a new property Estimated Number of Rows for All Executions; (3) Modify the property Actual Number of Rows to Actual Number of Rows for All Executions.
SQL Agent Fixed an issue where trying to edit a SQL Agent job step could have resulted in the SSMS UI freezing. SSMS is now allowing viewing (View button) an output_file whose name is tokenized (at least for the simple macros/tokens supported by SQL Agent that are not determined at runtime). Also SSMS is not disabling the "View" button when the user does not have access to the file (as far as SQL permissions go). See UserVoice 39063124.
SQL Agent Fixed the tab ordering on the Job Step page.
SQL Agent Reversed the position of the "Next" and "Previous" buttons on the Job Step page to put them in a logical order.
SQL Agent Adjusted the Job Schedule window to not clip the UI.
SMO/Scripting Fixed database scripting for SQL On Demand.
SMO/Scripting Removing explicit sqlvariant cast (illegal T-SQL syntax for SqlOnDemand) which fixes scripting for SqlOnDemand.
SMO/Scripting Fixed an issue where FILLFACTOR on indexes for SQL Azure was skipped.
SMO/Scripting Fixed an issue related to scripting External objects.
SMO/Scripting Fixed an issue where Generate Scripts was not allowing choosing the scripting option for Extended Properties against SQL DB. Also, fixed the scripting of such extended properties.
SMO/Scripting SQL Assessment API - Wrong help link in XTPHashAvgChainBuckets rule.
XEvent UI Fixed an issue here items in the grid where being selected on hovering. See UserVoice 38262124 and UserVoice 37873921.

New in Microsoft SQL Server Management Studio 18.4 (Nov 4, 2019)

New in Microsoft SQL Server Management Studio 18.3 (Sep 23, 2019)

New item:
Data Classification Add Data Classification information to column properties UI (Information Type, Information Type ID, Sensitivity Label, and Sensitivity Label ID are not exposed in the SSMS UI).
Intellisense/Editor Updated support for features recently added to SQL Server 2019 (for example, "ALTER SERVER CONFIGURATION").
SMO/Scripting Added support for Support scripting of Azure SQL DW unique constraint.
SMO/Scripting Data Classification
Added support for SQL version 10 (SQL 2008) and higher.
Added new sensitivity attribute 'rank' for SQL version 15 (SQL 2019) and higher and Azure SQL DB.
SMO/Scripting SQL Assessment API - Added versioning to ruleset format.
SMO/Scripting SQL Assessment API - Added new checks.
SMO/Scripting SQL Assessment API - Added support for Azure SQL Database Managed Instance.
SMO/Scripting SQL Assessment API - Updated default view of cmdlets to display results as a table.
Bug fixes:
Analysis Services Fix scaling issue in MDX Query Editor.
Analysis Services Fixed an issue in XEvent UI that prevents the users from being able to create a new session.
Database Deployment to SQL Azure Fixed an issue (in DacFx) which was causing this feature not to work.
General SSMS Fixed an issue, which was causing SSMS to crash when using the sorting feature in the XEvent viewer.
General SSMS Fixed long outstanding issues where SSMS Restore database may hang indefinitely.
See UserVoice items for more details:
Restore Database - Select Backup Devices Slow to Load.
SSMS 2016 very slow in the database restore dialogs.
Restoring database is slow.
Restore Database from Device HANGS on clicking "...".
General SSMS Fixed an issue where the default language for all logins was shown as Arabic.
See UserVoice item for more details: SSMS 18.2 default language display bug.
General SSMS Fixed the hard to see the dialog for Query Options (when the user right-clicks on the T-SQL editor window) by making it resizable.
General SSMS The Completion time message visible in the Result Grid/File (introduced in SSMS 18.2) is now configurable under Tools > Options > Query Execution > SQL Server > Advanced > Show completion time.
General SSMS In the connection dialog, replaced Active Directory - Password and Active Directory - Integrated with Azure Active Directory - Password and Azure Active Directory - Integrated, respectively.
General SSMS Fixed an issue that prevents users from being able to use SSMS to configure auditing on SQL Azure-Managed Instances when located in a TZ with negative UTC offset.
General SSMS Fixing an issue in XEvent UI where hovering over the grid was causing rows to be selected.
See UserVoice item for more details: SSMS Extended Events UI Selects Actions on Hover.
Import flat file Fixed the issue where Import Flat File was not importing all data by letting the user choose between a simple or rich data type detection.
See UserVoice item for more details: SSMS Import Flat File fails to import all data.
Integration Services Add new operation type StartNonCatalogExecution for SSIS Operation report.
SMO/Scripting Fixed an issue, which was causing SMO to throw errors when fetching properties when SMO.Server.SetDefaultInitFields(true) was being used.
Query Store UI Fixed an issue where the Y-axis did not scales when Execution Count Metric was selected in Tracked Query View.
Vulnerability Assessment Disabled clearing and approving baseline for Azure SQL DBs.

New in Microsoft SQL Server Management Studio 18.2 (Jul 25, 2019)

What's new in 18.2
New Item Details
Intellisense/Editor Added support for Data Classification.
OPTIMIZE_FOR_SEQUENTIAL_KEY Added Intellisense support.
OPTIMIZE_FOR_SEQUENTIAL_KEY Turns on an optimization within the database engine that helps improve throughput for high-concurrency inserts into the index. This option is intended for indexes that are prone to last-page insert contention, typically seen with indexes that have a sequential key such as an identity column, sequence, or date/time column. See CREATE INDEX for more details.
Query Execution or Results Added a Completion time in the messages to track when a given query completed its execution. See UserVoice for more details.
Query Execution or Results Allow more data to be displayed (Result to Text) and stored in cells (Result to Grid). SSMS now allows up to 2M characters for both (up from 256 and 64K, respectively). This also addressed the issue of users not able to grab more than 43680 chars from the cells of the grid.
ShowPlan Added a new attribute in QueryPlan when inline scalar UDF feature is enabled (ContainsInlineScalarTsqlUdfs).
SMO Added support for Feature Restrictions. For more information on the feature itself, see Feature Restrictions.
Integration Services (SSIS) Perf optimization for SSIS package scheduler in Azure.
Bug fixes in 18.2
New Item Details
Accessibility Updated the XEvent UI (the grid) to be sortable by pressing F3.
Always On Fixed an issue where SSMS was throwing an error when trying to delete an Availability Group (AG)
Always On Fixed an issue where SSMS was presenting the wrong failover wizard, when replicas are configured as Synchronous, when using read scale AGs (cluster type=NONE). Now, SSMS presents the wizard for Force_Failover_Allow_Data_Loss option, which is the only one allowed for cluster type NONE Availability
Always On Fixed an issue where the wizard was restricting the number of allowed synchronizations to three
Data Classification Fixed an issue where SSMS was throwing an Index (zero-based) must be greater than or equal to zero error when trying to view data classification reports on databases with CompatLevel less than 150.
General SSMS Fixed an issue where the user was unable to horizontal scroll Results pane via mouse wheel. See UserVoice for more details.
General SSMS Updated Activity Monitor to ignore benign wait types SQLTRACE_WAIT_ENTRIES
General SSMS Fixed an issue where some color options (Text Editor > Editor Tab and Status Bar) were not persisted. See UserVoice
General SSMS In connection dialog, replaced Active Directory - Universal with MFA support with Azure Active Directory - Universal with MFA (functionality is the same, but hopefully it's less confusing).
General SSMS Updated SSMS to use correct defaults values when creating an Azure SQL Database.
General SSMS Fixed an issue where the user was not able to Start PowerShell from a node in Register Servers when the server is a SQL Linux container.
Import Flat File Fixed an issue where Import Flat File was not working after upgrading from SSMS 18.0 to 18.1. See UserVoice
Import Flat File Fixed an issue where Import Flat File Wizard was reporting a duplicate or invalid column on a .csv file with headers with Unicode characters.
Object Explorer Fixed an issue where some menu items (for example, SQL server Import and Export Wizard) where missing or disable when connected to SQL Express. See UserVoice for more details.
Object Explorer Fixed an issue which was causing SSMS to crash when an object is dragged from Object Explorer to the editor. See UserVoice for more details.
Object Explorer Fixed an issue where renaming databases was causing incorrect database names to show up in Object Explorer. See UserVoice for more details.
Object Explorer Fixed a long outstanding issue where trying to expand the Tables node in Object Explorer for a database which is set to use a collation that is not supported by Windows anymore triggers an error (and the user can't expand his or her tables). An example of such collation would be Korean_Wansung_Unicode_CI_AS.
Register Servers Fixed an issue where trying to issue a query against multiple servers (under a Group in Registered Servers) when the Registered Server uses either Active Directory - Integrated or Azure Active Directory - Universal with MFA did not work because SSMS failed to connect.
Register Servers Fixed an issue where trying to issue a query against multiple servers (under a Group in Registered Servers) when the registered server uses either Active Directory - Password or SQL Auth and the user chose not to remember the password would cause SSMS to crash.
Reports Fixed an issue in Disk Usage reports where the report was failing to when data files had a vast number of extents.
Replication Tools Fixed an issue where Replication Monitor was not working with publisher DB in AG and distributor in AG (this was previously fixed in SSMS 17.x
SQL Agent Fixed an issue that when Adding, inserting, editing or removing job steps, was causing focus to be reset the first row instead of the active row. See UserVoice for more details.
SMO/Scripting Fixed an issue where CREATE OR ALTER was not scripting objects that had extended properties on them. See UserVoice for more details.
SMO/Scripting Fixed an issue where SSMS wasn't able to script CREATE EXTERNAL LIBRARY correctly. See UserVoice for more details.
SMO/Scripting Fixed an issue where trying to run the Generate Scripts against a database with a few thousand tables (was causing the progress dialog to appear to be stuck.
SMO/Scripting Fixed an issue where scripting of External Table on SQL 2019 did not work.
SMO/Scripting Fixed an issue where scripting of External Data Source on SQL 2019 did not work. See UserVoice for more details.
SMO/Scripting Fixed an issue where extended properties on columns were not scripted when targeting Azure SQL DB. See stackoverflow for more details.
SMO/Scripting Last-page insert: SMO - Add property Index.IsOptimizedForSequentialKey
SSMS Setup Mitigated an issue where SSMS setup was incorrectly blocking the installation of SSMS reporting mismatching languages. This could have been an issue in some abnormal situations, like an aborted setup or an incorrect uninstall of a previous version of SSMS. See UserVoice for more details.
XEvent Profiler Fixed a crash when the viewer is being closed.

New in Microsoft SQL Server Management Studio 18.1 (Jun 12, 2019)

New item:
Database diagrams Database diagrams were added back into SSMS. For details, see Database Diagrams.
SSBDIAGNOSE.EXE The SQL Server Diagnose (command line tool) was added back into the SSMS package.
Integration Services (SSIS) Support for scheduling SSIS package, located in SSIS Catalog in Azure or File System, in Azure. There are three entries for launching the New Schedule dialog, New Schedule… menu item shown when right-clicking the SSIS package in SSIS Catalog in Azure, Schedule SSIS Package in Azure menu item under Migrate to Azure menu item under Tools menu item and "Schedule SSIS in Azure" shown when right-clicking Jobs folder under SQL Server agent of Azure SQL Database Managed Instance.
Bug fixes:
Accessibility Improved accessibility of the Agent Job UI.
Accessibility Improved accessibility on Stretch Monitor page by adding accessible name for Auto Refresh button and also adding an intelligent Accessible Name that will help users know not only what button they are on but the impact of pressing it.
ADS integration Fixed a possible crash in SSMS when trying to use the ADS registered servers.
Database designer Added support for Latin1_General_100_BIN2_UTF8 collation (available in SQL Server 2019 CTP3.0)
Data classification Prevent adding sensitivity labels to columns in history table, which isn't supported.
Data classification Addressed issue related to incorrect handling of compatibility level (server vs database).
Database designer Added support for Latin1_General_100_BIN2_UTF8 collation (available in SQL2019 CTP3.0).
General SSMS Fixed an issue where scripting of pseudo columns in an index was incorrect.
General SSMS Fixed an issue in Login properties page where clicking on the Add Credential button could throw a Null Reference Exception.
General SSMS Fixed money column size display in index properties page.
General SSMS Fixed an issue where SSMS wasn't honoring the Intellisense settings from Tools/Options in the SQL editor window.
General SSMS Fixed an issue where SSMS wasn't honoring the Help settings (online vs offline).
High DPI Fixed layout of controls in error dialogs for unsupported query options.
High DPI Fixed layout of controls in New Availability Group page which on some localized version of SSMS.
High DPI Fixed layout of New Job Schedule page. See the feedback forum for more details.
Import flat file Fixed in issue where rows could be silently lost during the import.
Intellisense/editor Reduced SMO-based query traffic to Azure SQL databases for intellisense.
Intellisense/editor Fixed grammatical error in the tooltip displayed when typing T-SQL to create a user. Also, fixed the error message to disambiguate between users and logins.
Log Viewer Fixed an issue were SSMS always opens the current server (or agent) log, even if double-clicking an older archive sign in the Object explorer. See the feedback forum for more details.
SSMS setup Fixed the issue that was causing SSMS setup to fail when the setup log path contained spaces. See the feedback forum for more details.
SSMS setup Fixed an issue where SSMS was exiting immediately after showing the splash screen.
See these sites for more details: feedback forum, SSMS Refuses to Start, and Database Administrators.
Object explorer Lifted restriction on enabling start PowerShell when connected to SQL on Linux.
Object explorer Fixed an issue that was causing SSMS to crash when trying to expand the Polybase/Scale-out Group node (when connected to a compute node).
Object explorer Fixed an issue where the Disabled menu item was still enabled, even after disabling a given Index. See the feedback forum for more details.
Reports Correcting report to actually display GrantedQueryMemory in KB (SQL Performance Dashboard report). See the feedback forum for more details.
Reports Improved the tracing of the log block in Always-On scenarios.
ShowPlan Added new showplan element SpillOccurred to showplan schema.
ShowPlan Added remote reads (ActualPageServerReads, ActualPageServerReadAheads ActualLobPageServerReads, ActualLobPageServerReadAheads) to showplan schema.
SMO/scripting Avoid querying edge constraints during scripting for non-graph tables.
SMO/scripting Removed constraint on sensitivity classification when scripting columns with Data classification.
SMO/scripting Fixed in issue where "Generate Script" on a graph table fails when generating data. See the feedback forum for more details.
SMO/scripting Fixed an issue where the EnumObjects() method wasn't fetching schema name for a Synonym.
SMO/scripting Fixed an issue in UIConnectionInfo.LoadFromStream() where the AdvancedOptions section wasn't read (when a password wasn't specified).
SQL Agent Fixed an issue that was causing SSMS to crash while working with a Job Properties window. See the feedback forum for more details.
SQL Agent Fixed an issue where the "View" button on the Job-Step Properties wasn't always enabled, thus preventing viewing the output of a given job step.
XEvent UI Added "Package" column to XEvents list to disambiguate events with identical names.
XEvent UI Added missing "EXTERNAL LIBRARY" class type mapping to XEventUI.

New in Microsoft SQL Server Management Studio 18.0 (Jun 3, 2019)

SSMS 18.0 is the first release that is fully aware of SQL Server 2019 (compatLevel 150).
Support for "BATCH_STARTED_GROUP" and "BATCH_COMPLETED_GROUP" in SQL Server 2019 and SQL Managed Instance.
SMO: Added support for UDF Inlining.
GraphDB: Add flag in showplan for Graph TC Sequence.
Always Encrypted: added support for AEv2 / Enclave.
Always Encrypted: connection dialog has a new tab "Always Encrypted" when the user clicks on the "Options" button to enable/configure Enclave support.
The current size is ~500 MB, approximately half of the SSMS 17.x bundle.
The new shell (SSMS is based on Visual Studio 2017 15.9.11) unlocks all the accessibility fixes that went into both SSMS and Visual Studio, and includes the latest security fixes.
Much work went in to address accessibility issues in all the tools (SSMS, DTA, and Profiler)
"This option is available from both the command line (useful for unattended installation) and the setup UI. From the command line, pass this extra argument to the SSMS-Setup-ENU.exe:
SSMSInstallRoot=C:MySSMS18
By default, the new install location for SSMS is: %ProgramFiles(x86)%Microsoft SQL Server Management Studio 18Common7IDEssms.exe
This does not mean that SSMS is multi-instance."
The block on mixed languages setup has been lifted. You can, for example, install SSMS German on a French Windows. If the OS language does not match the SSMS language, the user needs to change the language under Tools > Options > International Settings, otherwise SSMS will show the English UI.
Much effort went in to avoid sharing components with SQL Engine, which often resulted in serviceability issues (one clobbering the files installed by the other).
We upgraded our minimum requirement from NetFx4.6.1 to NetFx4.7.2: this allows us to take advantage of the new functionality exposed by the new framework.
When SSMS 18 is started for the first time, the user will be prompted to migrate the 17.x settings. The user setting files are now stored as a plain XML file, thus improving portability and possibly allowing editing.
High DPI is now enabled by default.
For details, see Download Microsoft OLE DB Driver for SQL Server.
Due to the new dependency on NetFx 4.7.2, SSMS 18.0 does not install on Windows 8 and older versions of Windows 10 and Windows Server 2016. SSMS setup will block on those systems. Windows 8.1 is still supported.
Path to SSMS.EXE (and tools in general) is not added to the path anymore. Users can either manually add it, or if on a modern Windows computer, use on the Start menu.
In the past, SSMS was selectively loading only well-known packages, thus requiring developers to register their own package. This is no longer the case.
Exposing AUTOGROW_ALL_FILES config option for Filegroups in SSMS.
Removed risky 'lightweight pooling' and 'priority boost' options from SSMS GUI. For details, see Priority boost details – and why it’s not recommended.
New menu and key bindings to creates files: CTRL+ALT+N. CTRL+N will continue to create a new query.
New Firewall Rule dialog now allows the user to specify a rule name, instead of automatically generating one on behalf of the user.
Improved intellisense in Editor especially for v140+ T-SQL.
Added support in SSMS UI for UTF-8 on collation dialog.
Switched to "Windows Credential Manager" for connection dialog MRU passwords. This addresses a long outstanding issue where persistence of passwords was not always reliable.
Improved support for multi-monitor systems by making sure that more and more dialogs and windows pop up on the expected monitor.
Exposed the 'backup checksum default' server configuration in the new Database Settings page of the Server Properties Dialog. For details, see https://feedback.azure.com/forums/08035-sql-server/suggestions/34634974.
Exposed "maximum size for error log files" under "Configure SQL Server Error Logs". For details, seehttps://feedback.azure.com/forums/908035/suggestions/33624115.
Added "Migrate to Azure" under Tools menu – We have integrated Database Migration Assistant and Azure Database Migration Service to provide quick and easy access to help accelerate your migrations to Azure.
Added logic to prompt the user to commit open transactions when "Change connection" is used.
Added menu item to start/download Azure Data Studio.
Added "Start Azure Data Studio" menu item to Object Explorer.
When right-clicking on a database node in OE, the user is presented with context menus to either run a query or create a new notebook in Azure Data Studio.
SLO/Edition/MaxSize database properties now accept custom names, making it easier to support future editions of Azure SQL databases.
Added support for recently added vCore SKUs (General Purpose and Business Critical): Gen4_24 and all the Gen5.
Added new "AAD logins" as a new login type in SMO and SSMS when connected to an Azure SQL Managed Instance.
Rehash RTO (estimated recovery time) and RPO (estimated data loss) in SSMS Always on Dashboard. See updated documentation at https://docs.microsoft.com/sql/database-engine/availability-groups/windows/monitor-performance-for-always-on-availability-groups.
The Enable Always Encrypted checkbox in the new Always Encrypted tab in the Connect to Server dialog now provides an easy way to enable/disable Always Encrypted for a database connection.
"Several enhancements have been made to support Always Encrypted with secure enclaves in SQL Server 2019 preview:
A text field for specifying enclave attestation URL in the Connect to Server dialog (the new Always Encrypted tab).
The new checkbox in the New Column Master Key dialog to control whether a new column master key allows enclave computations.
Other Always Encrypted key management dialogs now expose the information on which column master keys allow enclave computations."
Changed authentication method from Storage Account Key based to Azure AD-based authentication.
Updated list of known audit actions to include FEATURE RESTRICTION ADD/CHANGE GROUP/DROP.
Reorganized data classification task menu: added sub menu to the database tasks menu and added an option to open the report from the menu without opening the classify data window first.
Added new feature 'Data classification' to SMO. Column object exposes new properties: SensitivityLabelName, SensitivityLabelId, SensitivityInformationTypeName, SensitivityInformationTypeId, and IsClassified (read-only). For more information, see ADD SENSITIVITY CLASSIFICATION (Transact-SQL)
Added new "Classification Report" menu item to the "Data Classification" flyout.
Updated recommendations.
"Added a new option under > Tasks > Database Upgrade. This starts the new Query Tuning Assistant (QTA) to guide the user through the process of:
Collecting a performance baseline before upgrading the database compatibility level.
Upgrading to the desired database compatibility level.
Collecting a second pass of performance data over the same workload.
Detect workload regressions, and provide tested recommendations to improve workload performance.
This is close to the database upgrade process documented in query store usage scenarios, except for the last step where QTA does not rely on a previously known good state to generate recommendations."
Added support to import/export data tier application with graph tables.
Added logic to notify the user that an import may have resulted in a renaming of the columns.
Added support to allow customers to schedule SSIS packages on Azure-SSIS IRs that are in Azure Government cloud.
When you use SQL Agent of Azure SQL Managed Instance via SSMS, you can configure parameter and connection manager in SSIS agent job step.
When connecting to Azure SQL DB/Managed Instance, you can connect to it with default as initial db.
Added a new entry item Try SSIS in Azure Data Factory under "Integration Services Catalogs" node, which can be used to launch the "Integration Runtime Creation Wizard" and create "Azure-SSIS Integration Runtime" quickly.
Added Create SSIS IR button in "Catalog Creation Wizard", which can be used to launch the "Integration Runtime Creation Wizard" and create "Azure-SSIS Integration Runtime" quickly.
ISDeploymentWizard now supports SQL Auth, Azure Active Directory Integrated Auth, and Azure Active Directory Password Auth in command-line mode.
Deployment Wizard now supports creating and deploying to Azure Data Factory SSIS Integration Runtime.
Add new menu items for "CREATE OR ALTER" when scripting objects.
Improved usability of some reports (Overall Resource Consumptions) by adding thousands separator to numbers displayed on the Y-axis of the charts.
Added a new Query Wait Statistics report.
Added "Execution Count" metric to "Tracked Query" View.
Added support for non-default port specification feature in Replication Monitor and SSMS.
Added actual time elapsed, actual vs estimated rows under ShowPlan operator node if they are available. This will make actual plan look consistent with Live Query Stats plan.
Modified tooltip and added comment when clicking on Edit Query Button for a ShowPlan, to indicate to user that the ShowPlan might be truncated by the SQL engine if the query is over 4000 characters.
Added logic to display the "Materializer Operator (External Select)".
Add new showplan attribute BatchModeOnRowStoreUsed to easily identify queries that are using the " batch-mode scan on rowstores" feature. Anytime a query performs batch-mode scan on rowstores, a new attribute (BatchModeOnRowStoreUsed="true") gets added to StmtSimple element.
Added Showplan Support to LocalCube RelOp for DW ROLLUP and CUBE.
New LocalCube operator for the new ROLLUP and CUBE aggregation feature in Azure SQL Data Warehouse.
Extend SMO Support for Resumable Index Creation.
Added new event on SMO objects ("PropertyMissing") to help application authors to detect SMO performance issues sooner.
Exposed new DefaultBackupChecksum property on the Configuration object which maps to the "backup checksum default" server configuration.
Exposed new ProductUpdateLevel property on the Server object, which maps to the servicing level for the version of SQL in use (for example, CU12, RTM).
Exposed new LastGoodCheckDbTime property on Database object, which maps to "lastgoodcheckdbtime" database property. If such property is not available, a default value of 1/1/1900 12:00:00 AM will be returned.
Moved location for RegSrvr.xml file (Registered Server configuration file) to "%AppData%MicrosoftSQL Server Management Studio" (unversioned, so it can be shared across versions of SSMS).
Added "Cloud Witness" as a new quorum type and as a new resource type.
Added support for "Edge Constraints" in both SMO and SSMS.
Added cascade delete support to "Edge Constraints" in both SMO and SSMS.
Added support for data classification "read-write" permissions.
Enabled Vulnerability Assessment tasks menu on Azure SQL DW.
Change the set of vulnerability assessment rules that are run on Azure SQL Managed Instance servers, so that "Vulnerability Assessment" scan results will be consistent with the ones in Azure SQL DB.
"Vulnerability Assessment" now supports Azure SQL DW.
Added a new exporting feature to export the vulnerability assessment scan results to Excel.
XEvent Viewer: enabled showplan window for more XEvents.
Details
Fixed a source of common SSMS crashes related to GDI objects.
Fixed a common source of hangs and poor performance when selecting "Script as Create/Update/Drop" (removed unnecessary fetches of SMO objects).
Fixed a hang when connecting to an Azure SQL DB using MFA while ADAL traces are enabled.
Fixed a hang (or perceived hang) in Live Query Statistics when invoked from Activity Monitor (the issue manifested when using SQL Server authentication with no "Persist Security Info" set).
Fixed a hang when selecting "Reports" in Object Explorer which could manifest on high latency connections or temporary non-accessibility of the resources.
Fixed a crash in SSSM when trying to use Central Management Server and Azure SQL servers. For details, see SMSS 17.5 application error and crash when using Central Management Server.
Fixed a hang in Object Explorer by optimizing the way IsFullTextEnabled property is retrieved.
Fixed a hang in "Copy Database Wizard" by avoiding to build unnecessary queries to retrieve Database properties.
Fixed an issue that was causing SSMS to hang/crash while editing T-SQL.
Mitigated an issue where SSMS was becoming unresponsive when editing large T-SQL scripts.
Fixed an issue that was causing SSMS to run out of memory when handling the big datasets returned by queries.
Fixed an issue there the "ApplicationIntent" was not passed along in connections in "Registered Servers".
Fixed in issue where the "New XEvent Session Wizard UI" form was not rendered properly on High DPI monitors.
Fixed an issue where trying to import a bacpac file.
Fixed an issue where trying to display the properties of a database (with FILEGROWTH > 2048GB) was throwing an arithmetic overflow error.
Fixed an issue where the Perf Dashboard Report was reporting PAGELATCH and PAGEIOLATCH waits that could not found in subreports.
Another round of fixes to make SSMS more multi-monitor aware by having it open dialog in the correct monitor.
Fixed an issue where the "Advanced Settings" to the AS XEvent UI was clipped.
Fixed an issue where DAX parsing throws file not found exception.
Fixed an issue where the database list was not populated correctly for Azure SQL Database query window when connected to a user database in Azure SQL DB instead of to master.
Fixed an issue where it was not possible to add a "Temporal Table" to an Azure SQL database.
Enabled the Statistics properties sub menu option under menu Statistics in Azure, since it has been fully supported for quite some time now.
Fixed issues in common Azure UI control that was preventing the user from displaying Azure subscriptions (if there were more than 50). Also, the sorting has been changed to be by name rather by Subscription ID. The user could run into this one when trying to restore a backup from URL, for example.
Fixed an issue in common Azure UI control when enumerating subscriptions which could yield a "Index was out of range. Must be non-negative and less than the size of the collection." error when the user had no subscriptions in some tenants. The user could run into this one when trying to restore a backup from URL, for example.
Fixed issue where Service Level Objectives were hardcoded, thus making it harder for SSMS to support newer Azure SQL SLOs. Now, the user can sign in to Azure and allow SSMS to retrieve all the applicable SLO data (Edition and Max Size)
Improved/polished the support for Managed Instances: disabled unsupported options in UI and and a fix to the View Audit Logs option to handle URL audit target.
"Generate and Publish scripts" wizard scripts unsupported CREATE DATABASE clauses.
Enable Live Query Statistics for Managed Instances.
Database properties->Files was incorrectly scripting ALTER DB ADD FILE.
Fixed regression with SQL Agent scheduler where ONIDLE scheduling was chosen even when some other scheduling type was chosen.
Adjusting MAXTRANSFERRATE, MAXBLOCKSIZE for doing backups on Azure Storage.
The issue where tail log backup is scripted before RESTORE operation (this is not supported on CL).
Create database wizard not scripting correctly CREATE DATABASE statement.
Special handling of SSIS packages within SSMS when connected to Managed Instances.
Fixed an issue where an error was displayed while trying to use "Activity Monitor" when connected to Managed Instances.
Improved support for AAD Logins (in SSMS Explorer).
Improved scripting of SMO Filegroups objects.
Improved UI for credentials.
Added support for Logical Replication.
Fixed an issue which was causing right-clicking on a database and choosing 'Import data-tier application' to fail.
Fixed an issue which was causing right-clicking on a "TempDB" to show errors.
Fixed an issue where trying to scripting ALTER DB ADD FILE statement in SMO was causing the generated T-SQL script to be empty.
Improved display of Managed Instances server specific properties (hardware generation, service tier, storage used and reserved).
Fixed an issue where scripting of a database ("Script as Create...") was not scripting extra filegroups and files. For details, see https://feedback.azure.com/forums/908035/suggestions/37326799.
Fixed an issue where the user was unable to attach a database when physical filename of .mdf file does not match the original filename.
Fixed an issue where SSMS might not find a valid restore plan or might find one which is sub-optimal. For details, see https://feedback.azure.com/forums/908035-sql-server/suggestions/32897752.
Fixed issue where the "Attach Database" wizard was not displaying secondary files that were renamed. Now, the file is displayed and a comment about it is is added (e.g. "Not Found"). For details, see https://feedback.azure.com/forums/908035/suggestions/32897434.
Generate scripts/Transfer/Copy Database Wizard try to create a table with an in memory table doesn't force ansi_padding on.
Transfer Database task/Copy Database Wizard broken on SQL Server 2017 and SQL Server 2019.
Generate scripts/Transfer/Copy Database Wizard script table creation before creation of associated external data source.
Enabled the removal of usernames from previous username list by pressing the DEL key. For details, see Allow deletion of users from SSMS login window.
Fixed an issue DAC Import Wizard was not working when connected using AAD.
Fixed an issue when saving classifications in the data classification pane while there are another data classification panes open on other databases.
Fixed an issue where the user was not able to import a Data-tier Application (.dacpac) due to limited access to the server (e.g. no access to all the databases on the same server).
Fixed an issue which was causing the import to be extremely slow when many databases happened to be hosted on the same Azure SQL server.
Added support for Rejected_Row_Location in template, SMO, intellisense, and property grid.
Fixed an issue where the "Import Flat File Wizard" was not handling double quotes correctly (escaping). See https://feedback.azure.com/forums/908035/suggestions/32897998.
Fixed an issue where related to incorrect handling of floating-point types (on locales that use a different delimiter for floating points).
Fixed an issue related to importing of bits when values are 0 or 1. For details, see https://feedback.azure.com/forums/908035-sql-server/suggestions/32898535.
Fixed an issue where floats were entered as nulls.
Fixed an issue where the import wizard was not able to process negative decimal values.
Fixed an issue where the wizard was not able to import from single column CSV files.
Will be in SSMS 17.9] Fixed issue where Flat File Import does not allow changing destination table when table is already existing. See https://feedback.azure.com/forums/908035-sql-server/suggestions/32896186.
Improved logic around honoring the online/offline modes (there may still be a few issues that need to be addressed).
Fixed the "View Help" to honor the online/offline settings. For details, see https://feedback.azure.com/forums/908035-sql-server/suggestions/32897791.
Fixed an issue where roles in "Fail Over Availability Groups" wizard was always displayed as "Resolving".
Fixed an issue where SSMS was showing truncated warnings in "AG Dashboard".
Fixed a SxS issue that deployment wizard will fail to connect to sql server when SQL Server 2019 and SSMS 18.0 are installed on the same machine.
Fixed an issue that maintenance plan task can’t be edited when designing the maintenance plan.
Fixed an issue that deployment wizard will stuck if the project under deployment is renamed.
Enabled environment setting in Azure-SSIS IR schedule feature.
Fixed an issue that SSIS Integration Runtime Creation Wizard stops responding when the customer account belongs to more than 1 tenants.
Fixed crash while using Job Activity Monitor (with filters).
Fixed an issue where SSMS was throwing an "Object cannot be cast from DBNull to other types" exception when trying to expand "Management" node in OE (misconfigured DataCollector).
Fixed an issue where OE was not escaping quotes before invoking the "Edit Top N..." causing the designer to get confused.
Fixed an issue where the "Import Data-Tier application" wizard was failing to launch from the Azure Storage tree.
Fixed an issue in "Database Mail Configuration" where the status of the SSL checkbox was not persisted. See https://feedback.azure.com/forums/908035-sql-server/suggestions/32895541.
Fixed an issue where SSMS grayed out option to close existing connections when trying to restore database with is_auto_update_stats_async_on.
Fixed an issue where right-clicking on nodes in OE the (e.g. "Tables" and wanting to perform an action such as filtering tables by going to Filter > Filter Settings, the filter settings form can appear on the other screen than where SSMS is currently active). For details, see https://feedback.azure.com/forums/908035-sql-server/suggestions/34284106.
Fixed a long outstanding issue where the DELETE key was not working in OE while trying to rename an object. For details, see https://feedback.azure.com/forums/908035-sql-server/suggestions/33073510, https://feedback.azure.com/forums/908035/suggestions/32910247 and other duplicates.
When displaying the properties of existing database files, the size appears under a column "Size (MB)" instead of "Initial Size (MB)" which is what is displayed when creating a new database. For details, see https://feedback.azure.com/forums/908035-sql-server/suggestions/32629024.
Disabled the "Design" context-menu item on "Graph Tables" since there is no support for those kind of tables in the current version of SSMS.
Fixed an issue where the "New Job Schedule" dialog was not rendering properly on High DPI monitors. For details, see https://feedback.azure.com/admin/v3/suggestions/35541262.
Fixed/improved the way an issue where a database size ("Size (MB)") is displayed in Object Explorer details: only 2 decimal digits and formatted using the thousands separator. For details, see https://feedback.azure.com/forums/908035/suggestions/34379308.
Fixed an issue that was causing the creation of a "Spatial Index" to fail with an error like "To accomplish this action, set property PartitionScheme".
Minor performance improvements in Object Explorer to avoid issuing extra queries, when possible.
Extended logic to request confirmation when renaming a database to all the schema objects (the setting can be configured).
Added proper escaping in Object Explorer filtering. For details, see https://feedback.azure.com/forums/908035/suggestions/36678803.
Fixed/improved the view in Object Explorer Details to show numbers with proper separators. For details, see https://feedback.azure.com/forums/908035/suggestions/32900944.
Fixed context menu on "Tables" node when connected to SQL Express, where the "New" fly-out was missing, Graph tables were incorrectly listed, and System-Versioned table was missing. For details, see https://feedback.azure.com/forums/908035/suggestions/37245529.
Overall perf improvements - Generate Scripts of WideWorldImporters takes half the time compared to SSMS 17.7.
When scripting objects, DB Scoped configuration which have default values are omitted.
Don't generate dynamic T-SQL when scripting. See https://feedback.azure.com/forums/908035-sql-server/suggestions/32898391.
Omit the graph syntax "as edge" and "as node" when scripting a table on SQL Server 2016 and earlier.
Fixed an issue where scripting of database objects was failing when connecting to an Azure SQL DB using AAD with MFA.
Fixed an issue where trying to script a spatial index with GEOMETRY_AUTO_GRID/GEOGRAPHY_AUTO_GRID on a Azure SQL DB was throwing an error.
Fixed an issue which was causing the database scripting (of a Azure SQL database) to always target an on-prem SQL, even if the "Object Explorer" scripting settings were set to match the source.
Fixed an issue where trying to script a table in a SQL DW database involving clustered and non-clustered indexes was generating incorrect T-SQL statements.
Fixed an issue where trying to script a table in a SQL DW database with both "Clustered Columnstore Indexes" and "Clustered Indexes" was generating incorrect T-SQL (duplicate statements).
Fixed Partitioned table scripting with no range values (SQL DW databases).
Fixed an issue where the user would be unable to script an audit/audit specification SERVER_PERMISSION_CHANGE_GROUP.
Fix and issue where the user is unable to script statistics from SQL DW. For details, see https://feedback.azure.com/forums/908035-sql-server/suggestions/32897296.
Fixed an issue where the "Generate script wizard" shows incorrect table having scripting error when "Continue scripting on Error" is set to false.
Improved script generation on SQL Server 2019.
Added "Aggregate Table Rewrite Query" event to Profiler events.
Fixed an issue where a "DocumentFrame (SQLEditors)" exception could be thrown.
Fixed an issue when trying to set a custom time interval in the build-in Query Store reports the user was not able to select AM or PM on the start/end interval.
Fixed an issue that was causing the in High Contrast mode (selected line numbers not visible).
Fixed an issue which resulted in an "Index out of range" exception when clicking on the grid.
Fixed an issue where the grid result background color was being ignored. For details, see https://feedback.azure.com/forums/908035/suggestions/32895916.
New mem grant operator properties display incorrectly when there is more than one thread.
Add the following 4 attributes in RunTimeCountersPerThread of actual execution xml plan: HpcRowCount (Number of rows processed by hpc device), HpcKernelElapsedUs (elapsed time wait for kernel execution in use), HpcHostToDeviceBytes (bytes transferred from host to device), and HpcDeviceToHostBytes (bytes transferred from device to host).
Fixed an issue where the similar plan nodes are highlighted in the wrong position.
Fixed an issue where SMO/ServerConnection did not SqlCredential-based connections correctly. For details, see https://feedback.azure.com/forums/908035-sql-server/suggestions/33698941.
Fixed an issue where an application written using SMO would encounter an error if it tried to enumerate databases from the same server on multiple threads even though it uses separate SqlConnection instances on each thread.
Fixed performance regression in Transfer from External Tables.
Fixed issue in ServerConnection thread-safety which was causing SMO to leak SqlConnection instances when targeting Azure.
Fixed an issue which was causing a StringBuilder.FormatError when trying to restore a database which had curly braces in its name.
Fixed an issue where Azure databases in SMO were defaulting to Case-Insensitive collation for all string comparisons instead of using the specified collation for the database.
Fixed an issue where "SQL System Table" where restoring the default colors was chancing the color to lime green, rather than the default green, making it very hard to read on a white background. For details, see Restoring wrong default color for SQL System Table. The issue still persists on non-English versions of SSMS.
Fixed issue where intellisense was not working when connected to Azure SQLDW using AAD authentication.
Fixed intellisense in Azure when user lacks access to master database.
Fixed code snippets to create "temporal tables" which were broken when the collation of the target database was case sensitive.
New TRANSLATE function now recognized by intellisense. For details, see https://feedback.azure.com/forums/908035-sql-server/suggestions/32898430.
Improved intellisense on FORMAT built-in function. For details, see https://feedback.azure.com/forums/908035-sql-server/suggestions/32898676.
LAG and LEAD are now recognized as built-in functions. For details, see https://feedback.azure.com/forums/908035-sql-server/suggestions/32898757.
Fixed an issue where intellisense was giving a warning when using "ALTER TABLE...ADD CONSTRAINT...WITH(ONLINE=ON)".
Fixed an issue where several system views and table values functions were not properly colorized.
Fixed an issue where clicking on editor tabs could cause the tab to be closed instead of getting the focus. For details, see https://feedback.azure.com/forums/908035/suggestions/37291114.
Fixed an issue where Tools > Options > SQL Server Object Explorer > Commands page was not resizing properly.
SSMS will now by default disable automatic download of DTD in XMLA editor -- XMLA script editor (which uses the xml language service) will by default now prevent automatically downloading the DTD for potentially malicious xmla files. This is controlled by turning off the “Automatically download DTDs and Schemas” setting in Tools > Options > Environment > Text Editor > XML > Miscellaneous.
Restored CTRL+D to be the shortcut as it used to be in older version of SSMS. For details, see https://feedback.azure.com/forums/908035/suggestions/35544754.
Fixed a crash in "Edit 200 rows".
Fixed an issue where the designer was allowing to add a table when connected to an Azure SQL database.
Fixed an issue where the scan results are not being loaded properly.
Added two columns "action_name" and "class_type_desc" that show action id and class type fields as readable strings.
Removed the event XEvent Viewer cap of 1,000,000 events.
Fixed an issue where XEvent Profiler failed to launch when connected to a 96-core SQL Server.
Fixed an issue where XEvent Viewer was crashing when trying to group the events using the "Extended Event Toolbar Options".

New in Microsoft SQL Server Management Studio 18.0 RC 1 (Apr 6, 2019)

New in Microsoft SQL Server Management Studio 18.0 Preview 6 (Jan 28, 2019)

WHAT'S NEW:
SSMS:
Added "Migrate to Azure" under Tools menu – We have integrated Database Migration Assistant and Azure Database Migration Service to provide quick and easy access to help accelerate your migrations to Azure.
Previous version of SSMS 18.0 (< Preview 6) had the "Available Databases" key shortcut bound to CTRL+ALT+J. In Preview 6 and later, the key binding has been restored to CTRL+U, like it was in SSMS 17.x.
Added logic to prompt the user to commit open transactions when "Change connection" is used.
SSIS:
When you use SQL Agent of MI by SSMS, you can configure parameter and connection manager in SSIS agent job step.
BUG FIXES:
SSMS Editor:
New TRANSLATE function now recognized by intellisense. For details, see https://feedback.azure.com/forums/908035-sql-server/suggestions/32898430.
Improved intellisense on FORMAT built-in function. For details, see https://feedback.azure.com/forums/908035-sql-server/suggestions/32898676.
LAG and LEAD are now recognized as built-in functions. For details, see https://feedback.azure.com/forums/908035-sql-server/suggestions/32898757.
Fixed an issue where intellisense was giving a warning when using "ALTER TABLE...ADD CONSTRAINT...WITH(ONLINE=ON)"
Object Scripting:
Fixed an issue where trying to script a spatial index with GEOMETRY_AUTO_GRID/GEOGRAPHY_AUTO_GRID on an Azure SQL Database was throwing an error.
SMO:
Fixed an issue where an application written using SMO would encounter an error if it tried to enumerate databases from the same server on multiple threads even though it uses separate SqlConnection instances on each thread.
Data Classification:
Fixed an issue when saving classifications in the data classification pane while there are another data classification panes open on other databases.
Azure SQL Database:
Enabled the Statistics properties sub menu option under menu Statistics in Azure, since it has been fully supported for quite some time now.
Query Data Store:
Fixed an issue where a "DocumentFrame (SQLEditors)" exception could be thrown.
Fixed an issue when trying to set a custom time interval in the build-in Query Store reports the user was not able to select AM or PM on the start/end interval.
Copy Database Wizard:
Generate scripts/Transfer/Copy Database Wizard try to create a table with an in memory table doesn't force ansi_padding on.
Transfer Database task/Copy Database Wizard broken on SQL Server 2017 and SQL Server 2019.
Generate scripts/Transfer/Copy Database Wizard script table creation before creation of associated external data source.
Profiler:
Added "Aggregate Table Rewrite Query" event to Profiler events.
ShowPlan:
New mem grant operator properties display incorrectly when there is more than one thread.

New in Microsoft SQL Server Management Studio 17.9.1 (Jan 28, 2019)

New in Microsoft SQL Server Management Studio 18.0 Preview (Sep 24, 2018)

What's new:
General SSMS:
Smaller Download Size:
The current size of the bundle is less than half of what SSMS 17.x is (~400MB). The size will eventually grow when the Integration Services (IS) components are added back in, but it should not be as big as it used to be.
SSMS 18.x is based on the new Visual Studio 2017 Isolated Shell:
This means a modern shell (we picked up Visual Studio 2107 15.6.4). The new shell unlocks all the accessibility fixes that went in to both SSMS and Visual Studio.
Accessibility improvements:
A lot of work went in to address accessibility issues in all the tools (SSMS, DTA, and Profiler).
SSMS can be installed in a custom folder:
Currently, this is only available on the command-line setup. Pass this extra argument to SSMS-Setup-ENU.exe:
SSMSInstallRoot=C:MySSMS18
By default, the new install location for SSMS is: %ProgramFiles(x86)%Microsoft SQL Server Management Studio 18Common7IDEssms.exe
Note
This does not mean that SSMS is multi-instance.
SSMS no longer shares components with SQL Engine:
A lot of effort went in to avoid sharing components with SQL Engine, which often resulted in serviceability issues from SQL or SSMS installs overwriting files installed by the other.
SSMS now requires NetFx 4.7.2 or greater:
We upgraded our minimum requirement from NetFx4.6.1 to NetFx4.7.2: this allows us to take advantage of the new functionality exposed by the new framework.
SSMS is not supported on Windows 8. Windows 10 / Windows Server 2016 requires version 1607 (10.0.14393) or later:
Due to the new dependency on NetFx 4.7.2, SSMS 18.0 does not install on Windows 8, older versions of Windows 10, and Windows Server 2016. SSMS setup will block on those operating systems. Windows 8.1 is still supported.
SSMS is not added to the PATH environment variable:
Path to SSMS.EXE (and tools in general) is not added to the path anymore. The users can either add it themselves or, if on a modern Windows, rely on the Start menu.
Support for SQL Server 2019 preview:
This is the first release of SSMS that is be fully aware of SQL Server 2019 preview (compatLevel 150, etc…).
Support "BATCH_STARTED_GROUP" and "BATCH_COMPLETED_GROUP" in SQL Server 2019 preview and SQL Database Managed Instance in SSMS.
SMO support for UDF Inlining.
GraphDB: Add flag in showplan for Graph TC Sequence.
Always Encrypted: Added support for Always Encrypted with secure enclaves.
Connection dialog has a new "Always Encrypted" tab when the user clicks on the "Options" button to enable and configure enclave support.
Package IDs no longer needed to develop SSMS Extensions:
SSMS was selectively loading only well-known packages, requiring developers to register their own packages. This is no longer the case.
Better Azure SQL support:
SLO/Edition/MaxSize database properties now accept custom names, making it easier to support future editions of Azure SQL Database.
Added support for recently added vCore SKUs (General Purpose and Business Critical): Gen4_24 and all the Gen5.
SMO:
Extend SMO Support for Resumable Index Creation.
Added new event on SMO objects ("PropertyMissing") to help application authors to detect SMO performance issues sooner.
Exposed new DefaultBackupChecksum property on the Configuration object which maps to the "backup checksum default" server configuration.
SSMS:
Exposing AUTOGROW_ALL_FILES config option for Filegroups in SSMS
Removed risky 'lightweight pooling' and 'priority boost' options from SSMS GUI (https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/arvindsh/2010/01/26/priority-boost-details-and-why-its-not-recommended).
SQL Editor honors the CTRL+D shortcut to duplicate lines (https://feedback.azure.com/forums/908035-sql-server/suggestions/32896594).
New menu and key bindings to creates files: CTRL+ALT+N. CTRL+N will continue to create a new query.
New Firewall Rule dialog now allows the user to specify a rule name, instead of automatically generating one (https://feedback.azure.com/forums/908035-sql-server/suggestions/32902039).
Data Classification: updated the recommendations.
Improved intellisense in Editor especially for v140 T-SQL.
Support for all Tier-1 languages.
Added support in SSMS UI for UTF-8 on collation dialog.
Switched to "Windows Credential Manager" for connection dialog MRU passwords. This will address a long outstanding issue where persistence of passwords was not always reliable (https://feedback.azure.com/forums/908035-sql-server/suggestions/32896486).
Support for High DPI is enabled by default.
Improved support for multi-monitor systems by making sure that more and more dialogs and windows pop up on the expected monitor.
Exposed the 'backup checksum default' server configuration in the new Database Settings page of the Server Properties Dialog. (https://feedback.azure.com/forums/908035-sql-server/suggestions/34634974).
SSMS / ShowPlan:
Added actual time elapsed, actual vs estimated rows under ShowPlan operator node if they are available. This will make actual plan look consistent with Live Query Stats plan.
Modified tooltip and added comment when clicking on Edit Query Button for a ShowPlan, to indicate to user that the ShowPlan might be truncated by the SQL engine if the query is over 4000 characters.
Added logic to display the "Materializer Operator (External Select)".
Add new showplan attribute BatchModeOnRowStoreUsed to easily identify queries that are using the "batch-mode scan on rowstores" feature. Anytime a query performs batch-mode scan on rowstores, a new attribute (BatchModeOnRowStoreUsed="true") gets added to StmtSimple element.
Always On:
Rehash RTO (estimated recovery time) and RPO (estimated data loss) in SSMS Always on Dashboard. For details, see Monitor performance for Always On Availability Groups.
Audit Files:
Changed authentication method from Storage Account Key based to Azure AD-based authentication. AD base Always Encrypted:
Added an Always Encrypted tab with an Enable Always Encrypted checkbox (in the Connect to Server dialog) that now provides an easy way to enable/disable Always Encrypted for a database connection.
Several enhancements have been made to support Always Encrypted with secure enclaves:
A text field for specifying enclave attestation URL in the Connect to Server dialog (the new Always Encrypted tab).
The new checkbox in the New Column Master Key dialog to control weather a new column master key allows enclave computations.
Other Always Encrypted key management dialogs now expose the information on which column master keys allow enclave computations.
For details, see Always Encrypted with secure enclaves.
Bug fixes:
Crashes / Hangs:
Fixed a source of common SSMS crashes related to GDI objects
Fixed a common source of hangs and poor performance when selecting "Script as Create/Update/Drop" (removed unnecessary fetches of SMO objects)
Fixed a hang when connecting to an Azure SQL DB using MFA whike ADAL traces are enabled
Fixed a hang (or perceived hang) in Live Query Statistics when invoked from Activity Monitor (the issue manifested when using SQL Server authentication with no "Persist Security Info" set).
Fixed a hang when selecting "Reports" in Object Explorer which could manifest on high latency connections or temporary non-accessibility of the resources.
Connection dialog:
Enabled the removal of usernames from previous username list by pressing the DEL key (https://feedback.azure.com/forums/908035/suggestions/32897632).
XEvent:
Added two columns "action_name" and "class_type_desc" that show action id and class type fields as readable strings.
Removed the event XEvent Viewer cap of 1,000,000 events.
External Tables:
Added support for Rejected_Row_Location in template, SMO, intellisense, and property grid.
SSMS Options:
Fixed an issue where the Tools > Options > SQL Server Object Explorer > Commands page was not resizing properly.
SSMS Editor:
Fixed an issue where "SQL System Table" where restoring the default colors was chancing the color to lime green, rather than the default green, making it very hard to read on a white background (https://feedback.azure.com/forums/908035-sql-server/suggestions/32896906).
Fixed issue where intellisense was not working when connected to Azure SQL DW using AAD authentication.
Fixed intellisense in Azure when user lacks master access.
Fixed code snippets to create "temporal tables" which were broken when the collation of the target database was case sensitive.
Object Explorer:
Fixed an issue where SSMS was throwing an "Object cannot be cast from DBNull to other types" exception when trying to expand "Management" node in OE (misconfigured DataCollector)
Fixed an issue where the DEL key was not working while renaming a node (https://feedback.azure.com/forums/908035/suggestions/32910247 and other duplicates).
Fixed an issue where OE wasn't escaping quotes before invoking the "Edit Top N…" causing the designed to get confused
Fixed an issue where the "Import Data-Tier application" wizard was failing to launch from the Azure Storage tree.
Fixed an issue in "Database Mail Configuration" where the status of the SSL checkbox was not persisted (https://feedback.azure.com/forums/908035-sql-server/suggestions/32895541).
Fixed an issue where SSMS greyed out option to close existing connections when trying to restore database with is_auto_update_stats_async_on
Fixed an issue where right clicking on nodes in OE the (e.g. "Tables" and wanting to perform an action such as filtering tables by going to Filter > Filter Settings, the filter settings form can appear on the other screen than where SSMS is currently active) (https://feedback.azure.com/forums/908035-sql-server/suggestions/34284106).
Fixed a long outstanding issue where the DELETE key was not working in Object Explorer while trying to rename an object (https://feedback.azure.com/forums/908035-sql-server/suggestions/33073510).
When displaying the properties of existing database files, the size appears under a column "Size (MB)" instead of "Initial Size (MB)" which is what is displayed when creating a new database (https://feedback.azure.com/forums/908035-sql-server/suggestions/32629024).
Disabled the "Design" context-menu item on "Graph Tables" since there is no support for this kind of table in the current version of SSMS.
Help Viewer:
Improved logic around honoring the online/offline modes.
Fixed the "View Help" to honor the online/offline settings (https://feedback.azure.com/forums/908035-sql-server/suggestions/32897791).
Object Scripting:
Overall perf improvements - Generate Scripts of WideWorldImporters takes half the time compared to SSMS 17.7.
When scripting objects, DB Scoped configuration which have default values are omitted.
Don't generate dynamic T-SQL when scripting (https://feedback.azure.com/forums/908035-sql-server/suggestions/32898391).
Omit the graph syntax "as edge" and "as node" when scripting a table on SQL Server 2016 and earlier.
Table Designer:
Fixed a crash in "Edit 200 rows".
Fixed an issue where the designer was allowing to add a table when connected to an Azure SQL database.
SMO:
Fixed an issue where SMO/ServerConnection did not handle SqlCredential-based connections correctly (https://feedback.azure.com/forums/908035-sql-server/suggestions/33698941).
AS:
Fixed an issue where the "Advanced Settings" to the AS Xevent UI was clipped
Flat File Import Wizard:
Fixed an issue where the "Import Flat File Wizard" was not handling double quotes correctly (escaping).
Fixed an issue where related to incorrect handling of floating-point types (on locales that use a different delimiter for floating points)
Fixed an issue related to importing of bits when values are 0 or 1 (https://feedback.azure.com/forums/908035-sql-server/suggestions/32898535).
Fixed an issue where floats were entered as nulls.
Data Classification:
Fixed a setup issue what was causing the recommendation part of Data Classification not to work with fresh install.
Backup/Restore/Attach/Detach DB:
Fixed an issue where the user was unable to attach a database when physical filename of .mdf file does not match the original filename.
Fixed an issue where SSMS might not find a valid restore plan or might find one which is sub-optimal (https://feedback.azure.com/forums/908035-sql-server/suggestions/32897752).
Fixed a crash in SSMS when trying to restore a URL backup.
Job Activity Monitor:
Fixed crash while using Job Activity Monitor (with filters).
Managed Instance support in SSMS:
Improved/polished the support for Managed Instances: disabled unsupported options in UI and and a fix to the View Audit Logs option to handle URL audit target.
"Generate and Publish scripts" wizard scripts unsupported CREATE DATABASE clauses.
Live Query Statistics was disabled for CL instances.
Database properties->Files was incorrectly scripting ALTER DB ADD FILE.
Fixed regression with SQL Agent scheduler where ONIDLE scheduling was chosen even when some other scheduling type was chosen.
Adjusting MAXTRANSFERRATE, MAXBLOCKSIZE for doing backups on Azure Storage.
The issue where tail log backup is scripted before RESTORE operation (this is not supported on CL).
Create database wizard not scripting correctly CREATE DATABASE statement.
Fixed an issue where an error was displayed while trying to use "Activity Monitor" when connected to Managed Instances.
Azure SQL Database:
Fixed an issue where the database list was not populated correctly for Azure SQL Db query window when connected to a user database in Azure SQL DB instead of to master.
Fixed an issue where it was not possible to add a "Temporal Table" to an Azure SQL database.
General Azure SQL support:
Fixed issues in common Azure UI control that was preventing the user from displaying Azure subscriptions (if there were more than 50). Also, the sorting has been changed to be by name rather by Subscription ID. The user could run into this one when trying to restore a backup from URL, for example.
Fixed an issue in common Azure UI control when enumerating subscriptions which could raise an "Index was out of range. Must be non-negative and less than the size of the collection." error when the user had no subscriptions in some tenants. The user could run into this one when trying to restore a backup from URL, for example.
Result Grid:
Fixed an issue that was causing the in High Contrast mode (selected line numbers not visible).
XEvent Profiler:
Fixed an issue where XEvent Profiler failed to launch when connected to a 96-core SQL Server.
Deprecated Features:
T-SQL Debugger
Database Diagrams
OSQL.EXE
Dreplay Admin UI
Configuration Manager tools:
Both SQL Server Configuration Manager and Reporting Server Configuration Manager are not part of SSMS setup anymore.
DMF Standard Policies
The policies are not installed with SSMS anymore. They will be moved to Git. Users will be able to contribute and download/install them, if they want to.
SSMS command line option -P removed
Due to security concerns, the option to specify clear-text passwords on the command line was removed.
Generate Scripts | Publish to Web Service removed. This (deprecated) feature was removed from the SSMS UI.
Removed node "Maintenance | Legacy" in Object Explorer. The phasedundeScripts | Publish to Web Service removed. The really old "Database Maintenace Plan" and "SQL Mail" nodes won't be accessible anymore. The modern "Database Mail" and "Maintenance Plans" nodes will continue to work as usual.

New in Microsoft SQL Server Management Studio 17.8.1 (Jun 26, 2018)

New in Microsoft SQL Server Management Studio 17.8 (Jun 21, 2018)

WHAT'S NEW:
GENERAL SSMS:
Database Properties:
This improvement exposes the AUTOGROW_ALL_FILES configuration option for Filegroups. This new config option is added under the Database Properties > Filegroups window in the form of a new column (Autogrow All Files) of checkboxes for each available Filegroup (except for Filestream and Memory Optimized Filegroups). The user can enable/disable AUTOGROW_ALL_FILES for a particular Filegroup by toggling the corresponding Autogrow_All_Files checkbox. Correspondingly, the AUTOGROW_ALL_FILES option is properly scripted when scripting the database for CREATE / generating scripts for the database (SQL2016 and above).
SQL Editor:
Improved experience with Intellisense in Azure SQL Database when the user doesn't have master access.
Scripting:
General performance improvements, especially over high-latency connections.
ANALYSIS SERVICES (AS):
Analysis Services client libraries and data providers updated to the latest version, which added support for the new Azure Government AAD authority (login.microsoftonline.us).
BUG FIXES:
GENERAL SSMS:
Maintenance Plans:
Fixed an issue when editing maintenance plans with Sql Authentication where "Notify Operator Task" was failing when using SQL authentication.
Scripting:
Fixed an issue where PostProcess actions in SMO lead to resource exhaustion and SQL login failures
SMO:
Fixed an issue where Table.Alter() fails if adding a column with a default constraint and the table already has data. For details, see sql server smo generating inline default constraint when adding a column to a table containing data.
Always Encrypted:
Fixed an issue (in DacFx) which was causing a lock timeout error when enabling Always Encrypted on a partitioned table
ANALYSIS SERVICES (AS):
Fixed an issue that occurred when modifying an OAuth datasource in a Tabular Analysis Services 1400-level compatibility model, which caused the changes in the OAuth tokens to not get updated in the data source.
Fixed a crash in SSMS that may have occurred when using some invalid data source credentials or editing data sources that didn't support Change Data Source migration in Power Query (for example, Oracle) in Analysis Services Tabular 1400-level compatibility models.

New in Microsoft SQL Server Management Studio 17.7 (May 9, 2018)

WHAT'S NEW:
General SSMS:
Replication Monitor:
Replication monitor now supports registering a listener for scenarios where publisher database and/or distributor database is part of Availability Group. You can now monitor replication environments where publisher database and/or distribution database is part of Always On.
Azure SQL Data Warehouse:
Add Rejected Row Location support for External Tables in Azure SQL Data Warehouse.
Integration Services (IS):
Added a scheduling feature for SSIS packages deployed to Azure SQL Database. Unlike SQL Server on premises and SQL Database Managed Instance (Preview), which have SQL Server Agent as a first-class job scheduler, SQL Database does not have a built-in scheduler. This new SSMS feature provides a familiar user interface that's similar to SQL Server Agent for scheduling packages deployed to SQL Database. If you're using SQL Database to host the SSIS catalog database, SSISDB, you can use this SSMS feature to generate the Data Factory pipelines, activities, and triggers required to schedule SSIS packages. You can then edit and extend these objects in Data Factory. For more info, see Schedule SSIS package execution on Azure SQL Database with SSMS. To learn more about Azure Data Factory pipelines, activities, and triggers, see Pipelines and activities in Azure Data Factory and Pipeline execution and triggers in Azure Data Factory.
Support for SSIS package scheduling in SQL Agent on SQL Managed instance. It is now possible to create SQL Agent jobs to execute SSIS packages on the managed instance.
BUG FIXES:
General SSMS:
Maintenance Plan:
Fixed an issue where trying to change the schedule of an existing Maintenance Plan was throwing an exception. For details, see SSMS 17.6 crashes when clicking on a schedule in a maintenance plan.
Always On:
Fixed an issue where Always On Latency Dashboard was not working with SQL Server 2012.
Scripting:
Fixed an issue where scripting stored procedure against Azure SQL Data Warehouse, is not working for non-admin user.
Fixed an issue where scripting a database against Azure SQL Database was not scripting the SCOPED CONFIGURATION properties.
Telemetry:
Fixed issue where SSMS crashes then trying to connect to a server, after opting out of sending telemetry.
Azure SQL Database:
Fixed an issue where the user was not able to set or change compatibility level (the drop-down from empty). Note: in order to set the compatibility level to 150, the user still needs to use the Script button and manually edit the script.
SMO:
Exposed Error Log Size setting in SMO. For details, see Set the Maximum Size of the SQL Server Error Logs.
Fix linefeed scripting in SMO on Linux.
Miscellaneous perf improvement when retrieving rarely used properties.
Intellisense:
Perf improvement: reduced volume of intellisense queries for column data. This is especially beneficial when working on tables with huge number of columns.
SSMS User settings:
Fixed an issue where the options page was not resizing properly.
Misc:
Improved how text is displayed on Statistics details page.
Integration Services (IS)
Better support for Azure SQL Database Managed Instance.
Fixed an issue where the user was unable to create a catalog for SQL Server 2014 or before.
Fixed two issues with reports: ?Removed the machine name for Azure servers.
Improved handling of localized object name.

New in Microsoft SQL Server Management Studio 17.6 (Mar 20, 2018)

WHAT'S NEW:
General SSMS:
SQL Database Managed Instance:
Added a support for Azure SQL Database Managed Instance. Azure SQL Database Managed Instance (preview) is a new flavor of Azure SQL Database, providing near 100% compatibility with SQL Server on-premises, a native virtual network (VNet) implementation that addresses common security concerns, and a business model favorable for on-premises SQL Server customers.
Support for common management scenarios like:
Create and alter databases.
Backup and restore databases.
Importing, exporting, extracting and publishing Data-tier Applications.
Viewing and altering Server properties.
Full Object Explorer support.
Scripting database objects.
Support for SQL Agent jobs.
Support for Linked Servers.
Object Explorer:
Added settings to not force brackets around names when dragging & dropping from Object Explorer to Query Window. (User suggestions 32911933, and 32671051.)
Data Classification:
General improvements and bug fixes.
Integration services (IS):
Added support to deploy packages to a SQL Database Managed Instance.
BUG FIXES:
General SSMS:
Data Classification:
Fixed an issue in Data Classification which was causing newly added classifications to be displayed with stale information type and sensitivity label.
Fixed an issue where Data Classification was not working when targeting a server set to a case-sensitive collation.
Always On:
Fixed an issue in AG Show Dashboard where clicking on Collect Latency Data could result in an error when the server was set to a case-sensitive collation.
Fixed an issue where SSMS was incorrectly reporting an AG as Distributed when the Cluster service shuts down.
Fixed an issue when creating AG using Create Availability Group dialog the ReadOnlyRoutingUrl is required.
Fixed an issue when the primary is down and manually failover to secondary, a NullReferenceException will be thrown.
Fixed an issue when creating Availability Group using backup/restore to initialize a database, on the secondary replicas, the database files will be created in the default directory. The fix includes:
Add the data/log directory validator.
Only do the file relocation when the replica is on a different OS to the primary replica.
Fixed an issue where SSMS wizard doesn't generate CLUSTER_TYPE option, causing secondary join to fail.
Setup:
Fixed issue where trying to upgrade SSMS by installing the "upgrade package" was failing when SSMS was installed in a non-default location.
SMO:
Fixed performance issue where scripting tables on SQL Server 2016 and above could take up to 30 seconds (now, it's down to less than 1 second).
Object Explorer:
Fixed an issue where SSMS could throw an exception like "Object cannot be cast from DBNull to other types" when trying to expand Management node in Object Explorer.
Fixed an issue where Start PowerShell was not detecting the SQLServer module when user-defined PS profile emitted output.
Fixed an intermittent hang that could occur when right-clicking a Table or Index node in Object Explorer.
Database Mail:
Fixed an issue where Database Mail Configuration Wizard was throwing an exception when trying to display/manage more than 16 profiles.
Analysis Services (AS):
Fixed as issue where modifying a data source on a 1400 compatibility level model in SSMS the changes are not saved to the server.
Integration Services (IS):
Fixed an issue where SSMS did not show SSIS catalog node and reports when connected to SQL Database Managed Instance

New in Microsoft SQL Server Management Studio 17.5 (Feb 16, 2018)

General SSMS:
Data Discovery & Classification:
Added a new SQL Data Discovery & Classification feature for discovering, classifying, labeling & reporting sensitive data in your databases.
Auto-discovering and classifying your most sensitive data (business, financial, healthcare, PII, etc.) can play a pivotal role in your organizational information protection stature.
Learn more at SQL Data Discovery & Classification.
Query Editor:
Added support for SkipRows option to the Delimited Text External File Format for Azure SQL DW. This capability allows users to skip a specified number of rows when loading delimited text files into SQL DW. Also added the corresponding intellisense/SMO support for the FIRST_ROW keyword.
Showplan:
Enabled display of estimated plan button for SQL Data Warehouse
Added new showplan attribute EstimateRowsWithoutRowGoal; and added new showplan attributes to QueryTimeStats: UdfCpuTime and UdfElapsedTime. For more information, see Optimizer row goal information in query execution plan added in SQL Server 2017 CU3.
Bug fixes:
General SSMS:
Showplan:
Fixed Live Query Statistics elapsed time, to show engine execution time instead of time elapsed for LQS connection.
Fixed an issue where showplan was not able to recognize Apply logical operators like GbApply and InnerApply.
Fixed an issue related to ExchangeSpill.
Query Editor:
Fixed on issue related to SPIDs where SSMS could throw an error like "Input string was not in a correct format. (mscorlib)" when executing a simple query preceded by a "SET SHOWPLAN_ALL ON".
SMO:
Fixed an issue where SMO was not able to fetch AvailabilityReplica properties in case the server collation happened to be case-sensitive (as a result, SSMS could display an error message like "The multi-part identifier "a.delimited" could not be bound."
Fixed an issue in DatabaseScopedConfigurationCollection class, where incorrectly handling collations (as a result, an SSMS running on an ma machine with a Turkish locale could display an error like "legacy cardinality estimation is not valid scoped configuration" when right clicking on a database running on a server with a case-sensitive collation).
Fixed an issue in JobServer class, where SMO was not able to fetch SQL Agent properties on a SQL 2005 server (as a result, SSMS was throwing an error like "Cannot assign a default value to a local variable. Must declare the scalar variable "@ServiceStartMode" and, ultimately, was not displaying the SQL Agent node in Object Explorer).
Templates:
"Database Mail": fixed a couple of typos (https://feedback.azure.com/forums/908035/suggestions/33143512).
Object Explorer:
Fixed an issue where Managed Compression would fail for indexes (https://feedback.azure.com/forums/908035-sql-server/suggestions/32610058-ssms-17-4-error-when-enabling-page-compression-o).
Auditing:
Fixed an issue with the Merge Audit Files feature.
Known issues:
Data classification:
Removing a classification and then manually adding a new classification for the same column results in the old information type and sensitivity label being assigned to the column in the main view.
Workaround: Assign the new information type and sensitivity label after the classification was added back to the main view and before saving.

New in Microsoft SQL Server Management Studio 17.4 (Dec 7, 2017)

WHAT'S NEW:
General SSMS:
Vulnerability Assessment:
Added a new SQL Vulnerability Assessment service to scan your databases for potential vulnerabilities and deviations from best practices, such as misconfigurations, excessive permissions, and exposed sensitive data.
Results of the assessment include actionable steps to resolve each issue and customized remediation scripts where applicable. The assessment report can be customized for each environment and tailored to specific requirements. Learn more at SQL Vulnerability Assessment.
SMO:
Fixed issue where HasMemoryOptimizedObjects was throwing exception on Azure.
Added support for new CATALOG_COLLATION feature.
Always On Dashboard:
Improvements for latency analysis in Availability Groups.
Added two new reports: AlwaysOn_Latency_Primary and AlwaysOn_Latency_Secondary.
Showplan:
Updated links to point to correct documentation.
Allow single plan analysis directly from actual plan produced.
New set of icons.
Added support for recognize "Apply logical operators" like GbApply, InnerApply.
XE Profiler:
Renamed to XEvent Profiler.
Stop/Start menu commands now stop/start the session by default.
Enabled keyboard shortcuts (for example, CTRL-F to search).
Added database_name and client_hostname actions to appropriate events in XEvent Profiler sessions. For the change to take effect, you may need to delete existing QuickSessionStandard or QuickSessionTSQL session instances on the servers - Connect 3142981
Command line:
Added a new command line option ("-G") that can be used to automatically have SSMS connect to a server/database using Active Directory Authentication (either 'Integrated' or 'Password'). For details, see Ssms utility.
Import Flat File Wizard:
Added a way to pick a schema name other than the default ("dbo") when creating the table.
Query Store:
Restored the "Regressed Queries" report when expanding the Query Store available reports list.
Integration Services (IS)
Added package validation function in Deployment Wizard, which helps the user figure out components inside SSIS packages that are not supported in Azure-SSIS IR.
BUG FIXES:
General SSMS:
Object Explorer:
Fixed an issue where Table-Valued Function node was not showing up for database snapshots - Connect 3140161.
Improved performance when expanding Databases node when the server has autoclose databases.
Query Editor:
Fixed an issue where IntelliSense was failing for users that don't have access to the master database.
Fixed an issue that was causing SSMS to crash in some cases when the connection to a remote machine was closed - Connect 3142557.
XEvent Viewer:
Re-enabled functionality to export to XEL.
Fixed issues where in some cases the user was not able to load an entire XEL file.
XEvent Profiler:
Fixed an issue that was causing SSMS to crash when the user did not have VIEW SERVER STATE permissions.
Fixed an issue where closing the XE Profiler Live Data window did not stop the underlying session.
Registered Servers: ?Fixed an issue where the "Move To…" command stopped working - Connect 3142862 and Connect 3144359.
SMO:
Fixed an issue where the TransferData method on the Transfer object was not working.
Fixed an issue where Server databases throws exception for paused SQL DW databases.
Fixed an issue where scripting SQL database against SQL DW generated incorrect T-SQL parameter values.
Fixed an issue where scripting of a stretched DB incorrectly emitting the DATA_COMPRESSION option.
Job Activity Monitor:
Fixed an issue where the user was getting an "Index was out of range. Must be non-negative and less than the size of the collection. Parameter name: index (System.Windows.Forms)" error when trying to filter by Category - Connect 3138691.
Connection Dialog:
Fixed an issue where domain users without access to a Read/Write domain controller could not log in to a SQL Server using SQL Authentication - Connect 2373381.
Replication:
Fixed an issue where an error similar to "Cannot apply value 'null' to property ServerInstance" was displayed when looking at properties of a pull subscription in SQL Server.
SSMS Setup:
Fixed an issue where SSMS setup was incorrectly causing all the installed products on the machine to be reconfigured.
User Settings:
With this fix, US Government sovereign cloud users will have uninterrupted access to their Azure SQL Database and ARM resources with SSMS via Universal authentication and Azure Active Directory login. Users of prior versions of SSMS would need to open Tools|Options|Azure Services and under Resource Management change the configuration of the "Active Directory Authority" property to https://login.microsoftonline.us.
Analysis Services (AS)
Profiler: fixed an issue when trying to connect using Window Authentication against Azure AS.
Fixed an issue that could cause a crash when canceling connection details on a 1400 model.
When setting an Azure blob key in the connection properties dialog when refreshing credentials, it will now be visually masked.
Fixed an issue in the Azure Analysis Services User selection dialog to show the Application ID guid instead of the Object ID when searching.
Fixed an issue in the Browse DatabaseMDX query designer toolbar that caused the icons to be incorrectly mapped for some buttons.
Fixed an issue that prevented connecting to SSAS using msmdpump IIS http/https addresses.
Several strings in the Azure Analysis Services User Picker dialog have now been translated for additional languages.
MaxConnections property is now visible for data sources in tabular models.
Deployment Wizard will now generate correct JSON definitions for Azure AS role members.
Fixed an issue in SQL Profiler where selecting Windows Authentication against Azure AS would still prompt for login.

New in Microsoft SQL Server Management Studio 17.3 (Nov 30, 2017)

ENHANCEMENTS:
New "Import Flat File" wizard added to streamline the import experience of CSV files with an intelligent framework, requiring minimal user intervention or specialized domain knowledge. For details, see Import Flat File to SQL Wizard.
Added "XEvent Profiler" node to Object Explorer. For details, see Use the SSMS XEvent Profiler.
Updated waits filtering and categorization in Performance Dashboard historical waits report.
Added the syntax check of the "Predict" function.
Added the syntax check of the External Library Management queries.
Added SMO support for External Library Management.
Added "Start PowerShell" support to "Registered Servers" window (requires a new SQL PowerShell module).
Always On: added read-only routing support for availability groups.
Added an option to send tracing details to the Output Window for "Active Directory - Universal with MFA support" logins (off by default; needs to be turned on in user settings under "Tools > Options > Azure Services > Azure Cloud > ADAL Output Window Trace Level").
Query Store:
Query Store UI will be accessible even when QDS is OFF as long as QDS have recorded any data.
Query Store UI now exposes waits categorization in all the existing reports. This will let customers unlock the scenarios of Top Waiting Queries and many more.
Made inclusion of the scripting parameters headers optional (off by default; can be enabled in user settings under "Tools > Options > SQL Server Object Explorer > Scripting > Include scripting parameters header") - Connect item 3139199.
Removed "RC" branding.
BUG FIXES:
General SSMS:
XEvent:
Fixed issue where SSMS opens only part of the events in .xel file.
Improved “Watch Live Data” experience when default database is not 'master' - Connect item 1222582.
Always On: Fixed issue where "Restore log backups" may fail with error "The log in this backup set terminates at LSN x, which is too early to apply to the database".
Job Activity Monitor: fixed inconsistent icons - Connect item 3133100.
Query Store: Fixed Issue where user cannot choose "custom" date range for Query Store reports. Linked to below connect items.
Connect item 3139842
Connect item 3139399
Fixed issue where connection dialog doesn't "clear" the most recently used database when saved info has named database and user selects .
Object Scripting:
Fixed an issue where "Generate database script" not working and throwing an error when the user has a paused DW database on the server, but selected another non-DW database and tried t script it.
Fixed issue where the header for scripted Stored Procedures was not matching the script settings, resulting in a misleading script - Connect item 3139784.
Re-enabled the "Script button" when targeting SQL Azure objects.
Fixed issue where SSMS was not allowing scripting for "Alter" or "Execute" on some objects (UDF, View, SP, Trigger) when connected to an Azure SQL database - Connect item 3136386.
Query editor:
Improved intellisense when targeting Azure SQL databases.
Fixed an issue where queries failed due to an expired authentication token (Universal Authentication).
Improved intellisense when working against Azure SQL databases (particularly, when connecting to Azure SQL Database, the latest T-SQL grammar (140) will be used).
Fixed issue where open a query window with a connection to a non-DataWarehouse database on a server would cause all subsequent query windows for that server to DataWarehouse databases to throw various errors about unsupported types/options.
Always On:
Added seeding mode column to Always On dashboard and AG properties page.
Fixed issue where it was not possible to create a Linux AG when primary is on Windows - Connect item 3139856.
Fixed several "Out of Memory" issues in SSMS when running queries - Connect item 2845190, Connect item 3123864.
Profiler:
Fixed issue were Profiler was not working when targeting SQL 2005.
Fixed issue where Profiler was not honoring the "trust server certificate" connection option.
Activity Monitor: fixed an issue where Activity Monitor does not work when pointed at SQL Server running on Linux.
Fixed an issue with the SMO Transfer class where it wouldn’t transfer External Data Source or External File Format objects, objects of those types should now correctly be included in the transfer.
Registered Servers:
Enabled multiserver query for UA servers (it will try to use the same token for every UA server in the group).
AD Universal Authentication:
Fixed issue where Azure AD authentication was not supported.
Fixed issue where table/view designer was not working.
Fixed issue where "Select Top 1000 rows" and "Edit Top 200 rows" were not working.
Database restore: fixed an issue where restore omits the last folder in the path when moving files to an alternate location.
Compress wizard:
Fixed an issue with manage compression wizard for indexes; fixed issue where compress data wizards was broken for SQL 2016 and lower. https://connect.microsoft.com/SQLServer/feedback/details/3139342
Added Compress wizard to Azure tables and indexes.
Showplan:
Fixed issue where PDW operators were not recognized.
Server Properties:
Fixed issue with not being able to modify server processor affinity.
Analysis Services (AS):
Fixed a number of issues with Deployment Wizard to support tabular 1400 compat-level models and Power Query data sources.
Deployment Wizard can now deploy to AS Azure when running from Command line.
When using Windows Auth in AS Azure the user will now see the name of the user account in Object Explorer correctly.