Announcing the release of SQL Server Management Studio 21 Preview 1
The SQL Tools team, in partnership with Visual Studio team, is thrilled to announce the release of SQL Server Management Studio 21 Preview 1, which is based on Visual Studio 2022 (17.13.0 Preview 1). I often state, “It takes a village,” and SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS) 21 is no exception. We initiated work for this release after making SSMS 20.0 available in March. The teams committed significant time and energy to bring SSMS 21 Preview 1 to completion and land a November release. We have rebuilt SSMS from the ground up and are excited to bring it into a modern state and address many long-standing customer requests; we've linked the feedback items below for those interested. Download SSMS 21 Preview 1 What's new As a result of SSMS 21 becoming a Visual Studio-based solution, SSMS now supports 64-bit, is available via a modern installer, and offers automatic updates. You can read more about the mechanics of the Visual Studio installer in the documentation. Thanks to the Visual Studio team, we will offer two channels for SSMS 21: Preview and Release. The Preview channel is currently the only available channel. Once SSMS 21 is Generally Available (GA), it will be available through the Release channel, and we will use the Preview channel to share early builds of future releases for those of you who like to stay on the cutting edge. A review of the release notes may suggest there isn’t a whole lot that’s new in SSMS 21, which is misleading. Two features that users have been asking to see for a very long time are now available: Git integration and dark theme. Git integration has always been an integral part of Visual Studio, and we are happy to bring it back to SSMS users. As noted in last week’s post, having this integration in SSMS 21 lays the groundwork to bring SQL projects to SSMS. The SQL projects team is focused on the current preview of SDK-style projects, which is work that must be completed before they can evaluate what needs to be done for support in SSMS. In the SSMS Roadmap blog post from March, I stated that we committed to determining the engineering effort to implement dark theme. Once we had an estimate of what it would cost, it felt like we had two options: halt all work on SSMS to implement dark theme, or never implement dark theme. Multiple members of the community suggested that we implement dark theme over time, starting with the most-used dialogs and then systematically working through all the dialogs. We made the decision to take that approach, with dark theme available initially for Object Explorer, the Query Editor and Results pane, and Template Explorer. If you enjoy dark theme and want to provide input as to what dialogs we should theme next, please try out SSMS 21 via the Preview channel and comment on this feedback item with your input. While our primary goal for SSMS 21 is to achieve parity with SSMS 20 (but obviously on Visual Studio 2022, with a new installer, etc.), we have been able to make other improvements. Some of those are thanks to Visual Studio 2022, others are community requests: Always Encrypted Assessment Support for vertical tabs in the editor (on the top right of the editor window, you’ll see a small gear icon, which will bring up the placement options) Additional options for tabs and windows (available in Tools > Options > Environment > Tabs and Windows) such as colorizing documents by project or file type, setting the minimum and maximum tab width, and more The ability to customize the font and background color for cells in the results gride that contain NULL values Create logins and users for Azure SQL database in the UI New page in the database properties dialog for Database Scoped Configuration options Language support for Czech, Polish, and Turkish What's fixed We also implemented a few bug fixes in this release. Most notably, users of Registered Servers and Central Management Servers (CMS) can now save connection settings, such as Trust Server Certificate. We also addressed a couple issues around SSMS hanging when trying to connect to an Azure SQL Database, and you type in the incorrect database name in the database dropdown, or the user doesn’t have permissions to all the databases on the logical server, or the database has been deleted and you try to connect to it. What's missing There are a lot of changes in SSMS 21, but when you open it for the first time, it has the familiar look of the application you’ve been using for years. We do have a few known issues in this preview, documented separate from the release notes. It’s important to note that SSMS 21 Preview 1 does not have support for Analysis Services and Integration Services, and therefore also does not have support for Maintenance Plans. We are working with the respective teams to bring these features back to SSMS 21 in a later preview. You’ll also likely notice some strings that reference Visual Studio – we are working through that list and hope to have them updated in the next preview. What's next Whew. We’re not done! There are additional projects that are in progress and will be available in later previews: Support for roaming settings and consolidation of settings Improving the startup time for SSMS Improving the Azure authentication experience New connection experience Format JSON output in the results pane Resolve the issue with SSMS forgetting passwords We've also added our roadmap to the documentation, which will update with major releases. Copilot and Extensions Last week we also announced that Copilot in SSMS will be available in Private Preview, therefore it is not available in this public preview of SSMS 21. If you would like to participate in the private preview, you can indicate your interest here. Copilot in SSMS will be an opt-in experience, available as an extension. On the topic of extensions, any third-party extensions for SSMS will need to be updated to 64-bit to work with SSMS 21. This may not be a trivial process for some individuals and companies. We recognize that some users won’t even try out the SSMS 21 Preview 1 release until their favorite extension is available, and we understand. We ask you to be patient with the folks that own those third-party extensions, as we were not able to share a build in advance to give them a head start on updating their extension. With the SSMS 21 Preview 1 release you can expect the same experience for extensions that you see in SSMS 20. Long-term, we will bring full support for extensions to SSMS, including the ability to browse extensions from within SSMS, a presence in the Visual Studio marketplace, and support of the VSIXInstaller. Feedback If we missed anything in this post, please check out the FAQ page to see if it’s addressed there. If not, please leave a comment and we’ll follow up. We will continue to leverage the feedback site to track the improvements the community wants to see in SSMS. If you have any issues with the SSMS 21 Preview 1 release, please log them on the feedback site (and please search within the Tooling group first!). For any issues you log, please include detailed steps to recreate, and it would be helpful to include "SSMS 21 Preview 1" in the feedback title. We will have multiple preview releases, and we would like to use this feedback loop to incorporate feedback and quickly resolve issues. Those of you that have read all the way to end: Bravo! You're a true SSMS supporter and our team appreciates your continued use of the tool we’ve poured our hearts into this year. We hope you enjoy exploring all the new features in SSMS 21, and we look forward to bringing you more previews in the coming months.What’s next for Copilot in SSMS
We released Copilot in SSMS (preview) with the General Availability of SSMS 21 in May of this year. For the uninitiated, the implementation requires creating an endpoint and deployment in Azure OpenAI (AOAI). We expected that some users would encounter friction during initial configuration - not all users of SSMS have Azure portal access, or permission to create such resources in Azure. However, the benefits of using AOAI - built in security, the ability to deploy resources in specific geographic areas, pay-as-you-go model - combined with an underlying architecture that ultimately supports accessing any endpoint (third-party or internal) outweighed potential setup challenges. We also expected that users would ask why we didn’t integrate with GitHub Copilot. And to be clear, it was something we had explored, and it was not feasible at the time due to a variety of factors. We were not surprised to see a feedback item calling for GHCP support. As the vote count climbed, and the comments flowed in, we increased our focus on GHCP feasibility. It was clear that SSMS users wanted a simpler, more familiar Copilot experience, like they have in Visual Studio and VS Code. We explored a PoC with GitHub Copilot, and we put out a survey asking about Copilot in SSMS (thanks to those that responded!). Ultimately, 75% of survey respondents wanted the Copilot experience in SSMS to leverage GitHub Copilot. An implementation pivot is not a quick or easy decision, and not something we take lightly. But at the end of the day, the data - combined with user feedback - supported the move to using GitHub Copilot. And that’s what we’re doing. We’re changing tack mid-course to move in a new direction. If you’re celebrating this decision, welcome to the party! If you’re not sure what this decision means for you, because you’re already using Copilot in SSMS 21, we see you. Keep reading. What about the existing Copilot in SSMS experience? The original Copilot in SSMS 21 will continue to be available in SSMS 21 but will not receive any updates. If you’ve been using Copilot in SSMS 21 (which connects to your Azure OpenAI Service), you can continue to use it in SSMS 21.x. We are not disabling or removing it from SSMS 21. However, the original Copilot in SSMS will not be actively developed further, and it will not be available in the next major release. Think of it as a feature-frozen preview – it will remain as-is (bug fixes aside) while we focus our energy on the new GitHub Copilot integration. This ensures that those of you who have invested time in the current Copilot can keep using it in SSMS 21. Will GHCP in SSMS have the same capabilities as Copilot in SSMS? Yes, in time. Our team’s mandate is to ensure that moving to GitHub Copilot in SSMS does not ultimately remove or degrade any functionality you had with the original Copilot in SSMS. The GitHub Copilot integration will get to parity with the original Copilot in SSMS – but it will take a few releases so please set expectations accordingly. GitHub Copilot in SSMS will have the sidecar chat, code assistance, and of course database context. We’re aiming for a seamless experience: you shouldn’t have to re-learn anything or lose capabilities. Ultimately, it will feel like Copilot is “built in” (because it will be), and then we’ll work to extend capabilities beyond what’s currently available in the existing Copilot experience. What about those of us who want or need to control where our model is deployed? GitHub Copilot supports connecting to your own model using API keys. In addition to OpenAI, connecting to Google and Anthropic are also supported, with more providers planned. When will GHCP in SSMS be available? Makena shared a blog post about the next SSMS release (v22), and GitHub Copilot in SSMS will debut in a preview of SSMS 22 after Preview 1. We know this might be disappointing for those eager to see GitHub Copilot in SSMS immediately, but there are two big factors in play: This integration is a significant engineering pivot for our team This integration requires collaboration with the GitHub Copilot and Visual Studio teams We are actively working to evolve the existing GitHub Copilot experience to one that is tailored for SSMS and includes database and connection context. Once it is available in a preview release, any SSMS user with a GitHub Copilot license will be able to sign in and start using it, with no additional setup required. We’re doing everything we can to minimize the gap between SSMS 22 Preview 1 and the reintroduction of Copilot, while also focusing on quality and reliability. Why can’t you release GHCP in SSMS now? It works in Visual Studio; doesn’t it just work in SSMS? GitHub Copilot in Visual Studio is designed to support a workflow for developers who live in projects and solutions all day. While users in SSMS may use projects and solutions for their T-SQL scripts, the workflow is very different. In addition, the biggest values of Copilot in SSMS are its connection and database context, and its RAG implementation. Neither exist in the current GitHub Copilot integration; we have to add it. The context capabilities from the original Copilot in SSMS cannot just be “dropped” into the GitHub Copilot code. We need time to make this work correctly with the GitHub Copilot integration and ensure code quality meets our expectations. What Copilot experience will be available in SSMS 22 Preview 1? The first public preview of SSMS 22 will not include any Copilot functionality. Those of you excited about GitHub Copilot might be disappointed, and we understand, but it’s necessary for the short term. As discussed above, there is significant engineering work for us to customize GitHub Copilot for SSMS, and the new integration will not be ready for Preview 1. This means when you try out SSMS 22 Preview 1, you won’t see an option to install AI components, and you won’t see Copilot in the menu or have AI suggestions. We want to be very clear, so no one is surprised. Remember, this is temporary! Will you backport GitHub Copilot to SSMS 21? No, GitHub Copilot in SSMS will only be available in SSMS 22. Do I need a GitHub Copilot subscription to use GitHub Copilot in SSMS? Yes. What if I don’t have a GHCP subscription? You can sign up for a personal subscription (GitHub Copilot · Your AI pair programmer), or your company can sign up for a business or enterprise subscription. Once you have a subscription, you can use GitHub Copilot in SSMS. What GHCP subscriptions are supported? All personal and business subscriptions are supported. Can I use GHCP for free? Yes! GitHub Copilot offers a free, personal subscription that can be used in SSMS, just like it can be used in Visual Studio. If I like GitHub Copilot for MSSQL in VS Code, will I like GitHub Copilot in SSMS? We hope so! With GitHub Copilot as the foundation for both, and database context infused in the experience, our teams are working together to create a consistent experience across copilots. What’s next? We are excited about this change. By aligning SSMS with GitHub Copilot, we’re not simply solving a pain point, we’re also creating a more unified experience across the Microsoft ecosystem. Whether you’re writing T-SQL in SSMS, C# in Visual Studio, or both in VS Code, Copilot will operate on the same principles and licensing. This consistency is a win for developers and database professionals who use multiple tools. If you have questions about this change that aren’t answered here, please leave a comment and we’ll answer them (and update the post with the information if applicable). On behalf of the entire team, thank you for your continued interest and feedback. It’s not every day that we make a pivot of this magnitude, but we believe that this will make it easier for users to embrace AI assistance in SSMS. We’re committed to creating a copilot that’s a valuable and efficient companion whether you're writing T-SQL or managing a database, and the move to GitHub Copilot gets us closer to that vision.
