My favorite SQL Server Management Studio settings

I work a lot with SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS). From a performance perspective I'm not so happy with the default settings of this application. Therefor I made some changes to the settings of SSMS.

To made changes to the setting of SSMS start SSMS and select Tools, Options in the menu.

1. Startup with an empty environment. (Environment, General, At startup: Open empty environment)
2. To avoid to lock other users when you execute long running SELECT queries. Set the default transaction isolation level to: READ UNCOMMITTED (Query Execution, SQL Server, Advanced, SET TRANSACTION ISOLATION LEVEL)
3. Include column headers when copying or saving results. (Query Results, SQL Server, Result to Grid)
4. Quote strings containing list seperators when saving to .csv results. (Query Results, SQL Server, Result to Grid)
5. Word wrap. This is a setting which I changed a lot depending on the kind of queries I'm analyzing. (Text editor, Plain Text, General, Settings)

Enjoy using SSMS

Using SQL Profiler Trace without the SA server role

By default users who has the SA role (SysAdmin) server role on the SQL server are able to trace activity on the SQL server with SQL Profiler. However not all users who need to trace SQL server activity will have the SA server role. To give users permissions to run SQL Profiler traces without the SA role, you need to grant ALTER TRACE permissions to the these users.

For instance grant SQL Profiler permissions to the user account Mark from domain MyCompany:

GRANT ALTER TRACE to [MyCompany\Mark]

For more information see: Permissions required to run SQL Profiler trace.

IIS Database Manager to easily manage your local and remote databases within IIS Manager

IIS Database Manager allows you to easily manage your local and remote databases from within IIS Manager. IIS Database Manager automatically discovers databases based on the Web server or application configuration and also provides the ability to connect to any database on the network. Once connected, IIS Database Manager provides a full array of management options including managing tables, views, stored procedures and data, as well as running ad hoc queries.

IIS Database Manager provides native support for SQL Server and is also fully extensible for developers to add support for other database systems. In addition, because IIS Database Manager is an extension of IIS Manager, administrators can securely delegate the management of databases to authorized local or remote users, without having to open additional management ports on the server.


First of all install the IIS Database Manager of your web server.
Start the IIS Manager.
Select your web server
In the management view click on the Database Manager icon

Create a database connection to the database you want:

Open your connection:

Press on the new query button:

Now you can start executing queries on your database

Be aware this is a simple query analyzer. You can't for instance retrieve query plans etc. But for simple checks it can be a nice tool without the need to install the full SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)

Exact Globe compatible with Windows 7

On 22 october 2009 Windows 7 will become commercial available. Exact Software has become one of the first European software vendors to receive this certification. By the time the Microsoft Worldwide Partner Conference took place in July, Exact Globe was certified and ready to run on Windows 7. More information about Exact Globe running on Windows 7 can be found on the Exact Product Blog and on the Ready.Set.7 site of Microsoft.
On the Ready.Set.7 website you’ll find the Exact logo and behind it, a short piece describing the advantages.
A short film featuring Aad ‘t Hart can also be viewed, in which he gives his views on what Windows 7 can do for our customers. “Windows 7 increases the productivity of the Exact Globe end user,” Aad says.

With Exact Globe you are now able to run on the most recent available technology with Windows 7 and SQL Server 2008. Don't forget that you can buy SQL 2008 licenses for the use with Exact products with a big discount via Exact.