SQL Server 2012 – Management Studio Essentials

Ah this is the interesting bit, if you coming from development background than I am sure you would find SQL Management studio a bliss. The main improvement Management Studio packs now is it is built on top of Visual Studio 2010 IDE. Those of you who have never used Visual Studio 2010, well one word it is a huge improvement from where the old SQL Management Studio IDE was.

I assume you are well vest with Windows Server or Windows Operation system and possibly from development background. I will aim to keep the instructions short and simple and use a lot of shortcuts. Shortcuts are very handy when you are in a rush. (Linux background well you already are use command line). Okay the first short cut (if you didn't already knew).

To start up Sql Server Management Studio.

Windows 7, Windows 2008, Windows 2008 R2

1. Start Run
2. Type in SSMS and press enter

Better yet (and helpful if using Windows 8)

1. Windows Key + R, type in SSMS and press enter.

You should have your beautiful new SQL Server 2012 Management Studio up.

Making a connection.

Connecting to a database is very simple if you have the database running under the same machine you can just type in Localhost in the Server name and choose windows authentication as shown above.

Now if you had installed the SQL server, assume you would have added yourself as the administrator or another domain user. By default Windows authentication mode is selected or you could choose Mixed Mode, in either case you can have (Please refer to SQL installation).

If your SQL server is installed with Windows Authentication and possibly some older application needs it be changed to accept SQL Authentication? Once you logged in you can change this in the following steps:

1. Right-Click on the Server name in the object Explorer. (If you object explorer is not accessible you can turn it on by View menu -> Object Explorer or simply press F8)
2. Click on Properties menu from the popup.
3. In the properties window select the security pages and select "SQL Server and Windows Authentication Mode" option and click Ok