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SQL Server Blog
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Announcing the release of SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS) 21.3.6

mbarickman's avatar
mbarickman
Icon for Microsoft rankMicrosoft
Jun 17, 2025

Today we released SSMS 21.3.6, bringing several bug fixes and introducing a new feature that has been a long-standing customer request: rename tabs! Update to the latest version of SSMS by going to Help > Check for Updates or open the Visual Studio Installer to download and install the update. If you don’t have SSMS 21 yet, you can learn more about downloading and installing it here. As always, please refer to our release notes to see the full list of new features, bug fixes, and known issues.

Renaming unsaved tabs

Have you ever had 10, 20, 30+ tabs open in SSMS and find yourself jumping between them trying to find which SQLQuery#.sql you need to reference? Don’t need to save the file, but wish you had a way to rename the tab so you know what’s in it? Hopefully we just made the task of tab hopping a little easier: today we are excited to introduce the ability to rename unsaved tabs in SSMS 21.3.6. Simply right-click a tab, select Rename and enter a new name. If you decide you want to save the tab, the save name will default to what you renamed the tab to.

Right-click a tab and select "Rename Tab" to customize your tab name!

Bug fixes in 21.3.6

We’ve continued to focus on fixing issues reported by the community on the Developer Community site. I’ve said it once, and I’ll say it again, thank you for the feedback and thank you for being such an enthusiastic product community. Your feedback really makes a difference and shapes the future of SSMS!

Published Jun 17, 2025
Version 1.0

2 Comments

  • willspurgeon's avatar
    willspurgeon
    Copper Contributor

    Such a great release! The fix "Resolved errors that were generated when a data source other than Microsoft OLEDB Provider for SQL Server was selected in the Import and Export Wizard" means "You can import 64-bit Excel files via SSMS" - which is a big deal to me. I'm VERY GRATEFUL to the SSMS team for getting this working. Also the "initial load time" is half what it was for SSMS v20, ALSO great. Good job folks.

    • mbarickman's avatar
      mbarickman
      Icon for Microsoft rankMicrosoft

      Hi willspurgeon​ - thank you for the kind words. We're glad to hear that you've been enjoying the latest updates to SSMS! I'll pass along your message to the SSMS engineering team :)