The Future of SSMS

One of the smaller announcements amidst the gazillion new features of SQL Server 2016, is that SSMS is now a separate installation. You heard that right (read, probably), no more dragging along those bulky .ISO files with the entire SQL Server set-up just to install some client tools. Just like SSDT, you can now just download Management Studio from the interwebs.

What’s even better is that you can now also get automatic updates! I opened SSMS and suddenly I got a lovely notification in my system tray that there are updates for SSMS. Isn’t that great? Clicking on it gave me the following dialog:

Nice. Don’t get too cocky though, clicking the Update button just takes you to an MSDN download page where you can download the latest version. Baby steps.