Download SQL Server Management Studio 18.4

Microsoft has released version 18.4 of SQL Server Management Studio, often shortened to SSMS. With SSMS you can manage a Microsoft SQL environment, for example an on-premise SQL Server, but also an Azure SQL Data Warehouse in the cloud. It offers tools for the configuration, monitoring and commissioning of the various dating components. You can also put together queries and scripts. The corresponding announcement looks like this:

What’s new in 18.4

• Data Classification Added support for custom information protection policy for data classification.
• Query Store Added the Max Plan per query value in the dialog properties.
• Query Store Added support for the new Custom Capture Policies.
• SMO / Scripting Support Script or materialized view in SQL DW.
• SMO / Scripting Added support for SQL On Demand.
• SMO / Scripting SQL Assessment API – Added 50 assessment rules (see details on GitHub).
• SMO / Scripting SQL Assessment API – Added base math expressions and comparisons to rules conditions.
• SMO / Scripting SQL Assessment API – Added support for RegisteredServer object.
• SMO / Scripting SQL Assessment API – Updated way how rules are stored in the JSON format and also updated the mechanism of applying overrides / customizations.
• SMO / Scripting SQL Assessment API – Updated rules to support SQL on Linux.
• SMO / Scripting SQL Assessment API – Updated the ruleset JSON format and added SCHEMA version.
• SMO / Scripting SQL Assessment API – Updated cmdlets output to improve readability of recommendations.
• XEvent Profiler Added error_reported event to XEvent Profiler sessions.

Bug fixes in 18.4

• Analysis Services Fixed an issue where the DAX Script editor for multi-dimensional databases didn’t show tables in the IntelliSense.
• Analysis Services Use DAX Parser to convert to an Engine string. This is for international separators, decimal, and whitespace.
• Always Encrypted Fixed an issue where the claim validation was not case insensitive.
• Always Encrypted Fixed an issue where error / warning reporting was not properly working.
• Copy Database Wizard Fixed assorted truncation and layout issues in the rendering of this dialog.
• General SSMS Fixed a long outstanding issue where SSMS was not honoring the connection info passed at the command line when SQL files were also specified.
• General SSMS Fixed a crash in SSMS while trying to display Securables on “Replication Filter” objects.
• General SSMS Mitigated the removal of the -P command-line option by having SSMS look at its cache of credentials: if the required credential were found, the connection would be established using it.
• Import flat file Fixed an issue where Import Flat File functionality not handling text qualifiers correctly.
• Object Explorer Fixed an issue where dropping an Azure SQL Database in Object Explorer was showing an incorrect message.
• Query Results Fixing an issue introduced in SSMS 18.3.1, where grids would be drawn slightly too narrow and show … at the end of the longest string in every column.
• Replication Tools Fixed an issue that was causing the application to throw an error (“Could not load file or assembly …”) when trying to edit SQL Agent jobs.
• SMO / Scripting Fixed an issue when Script Table As… for SQL DW whose collation is Japanese_BIN2 was not working.
• SMO / Scripting Fixed an issue where ScriptAlter () ended up executing the statements on the server.
• SQL Agent Fixed an issue where the agent operator UI would not update the operator name when it was changed in the UI, nor would it be scripted. See UserVoice for more details.

Known issues (18.4)

• Database Diagram created from SSMS running on machine A cannot be modified from machine B (SSMS crashes). See UserVoice for more details.
• There are redraw issues when switching between multiple query windows. See UserVoice for more details. A workaround for this issue is to disable hardware acceleration under Tools> Options.

You can reference UserVoice for other known issues and to provide feedback to the product team.