We’re excited to announce the release of SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS) 21 Preview 7!This release introduces a key enhancement: customizable workloads, available directly through the Visual Studio Installer. Alongside several bug fixes and usability improvements, this update reflects our continued investment in making SSMS more flexible, efficient, and responsive to your feedback. Keep reading for more details, or check out our release notes. 

From the Visual Studio Installer you can find the update for SSMS 21 Preview 7If you already have SSMS 21 Preview installed, you’ll receive a notification that the Preview 7 update is available!

Customizable Workloads Now Available

Within the Visual Studio Installer you can choose and install the workloads you want. Workloads are group components that are commonly used together. This modular strategy provides extensibility, allowing you to customize your installation, keeping your SSMS footprint smaller so it installs and updates faster.

A view of the Workloads page in the Visual Studio Installer. If you already have SSMS 21 Preview Installed, select ‘Modify’ and select the ‘Workloads’ tab.

With SSMS 21 Preview 7, we’re introducing three workloads:

1. Business intelligence


2. Hybrid and migration


3. Code tools

The business intelligence workload currently includes SQL Server Analysis Services (SSAS) and SQL Server Reporting Services (SSRS) – components to help empower your business and turn data into powerful tools.

The hybrid and migration workload contains the Migration component (preview) – an easy way to assess your upgrade readiness and move your data.

The code tools workload includes the Help Viewer component that allows you to download and view SSMS documentation offline, as well as the Version Control – Git component that helps track and manage changes to improve collaboration.

Bug fixes from user feedback

This release, we tackled several items of user feedback from our Developer Community site. Thank you for the feedback and please keep it coming!

• Connection Dialog: Fixed several issues in the Modern connection dialog (preview), including:




• Corrupted connection profile warnings


• Incorrect setting of the ApplicationIntent field


• Improper order of imported connection properties. See new login history experience – history upside down (recent connections at the bottom).




• Query Plans: Eliminated a blank line in the query text sample for estimated query plans. See Request: remove the additional blank line in query text sample when viewing estimated query plan.


• Query Store: Improved the readability of the plan summary graph by updating its color scheme. See Query Store – Plan summary graph colors are hard to look at.


• Source Control: Fixed an issue where SQL code in differential views wasn’t properly colorized when viewing commit details. See SSMS 21, Git Changes, Manage Branches, select Branch, select specific commit, then View Commit Details, select specific sql code change, no coloring.


• Status Bar: The Session ID (SPID) displayed in the status bar now correctly updates after query execution, preventing stale SPID data following a silent server reconnect. See The SPID reported by SSMS in the status bar is incorrect after the server restarts.


• SQL Server Profiler: Addressed an issue where SQL Server Profiler could not connect to Azure endpoints using Entra MFA. See SQL Profiler 21 Preview 6 – Could not load file or assembly.

A quick note on extensions

We know many members of the community have been interested in extension support in SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS). Bringing extensions to SSMS is a multi-step process. It starts with supporting first-party (internal) extensions, such as the new Migration extension, SSIS and SSAS, and eventually Copilot in SSMS. These first-party extensions appear in the Visual Studio Installer as individual components.

For SSMS 21, we will not have full support for third-party extensions. That means that existing extensions can be updated to work with SSMS 21 without any restrictions. We will not block third-party extensions. However, please note that we still do not officially support these extensions, and any feedback items on our Developer Community site requesting help will be closed.

We will begin looking at official support, which includes the following:

1. VSIX support – the ability to easily install a .VSIX into SSMS


2. Extension management – leverage Extension menu in SSMS, eliminating the need to use the command line for uninstalling extensions.


3. Marketplace presence – users will have the ability to search for extensions available for SSMS.

There are no timelines that we can share currently, but we commit to announcing updates as we make progress. We know these enhancements will significantly improve the user experience and extend the functionality of SSMS, and we look forward to making them available in the future.

 

We appreciate your continued feedback as we iterate on SSMS 21. Try out Preview 7 and let us know what you think at aka.ms/ssms-feedback.

Download SSMS 21 Preview 7 today and experience the latest improvements firsthand!