Your Daily Driver Got an Overhaul: What's New in SSMS 21 and 22

How long have you had SSMS open right now? It's the tool most of us live in all day, and for years it barely changed. That's over. Think of it like a car you've driven forever that just came back from a full overhaul.

This month we're doing a two-part tour, live.

First, SSMS 21, the rebuild: 64-bit at last, the new Visual Studio Installer with automatic updates, dark theme, vertical tabs and tab coloring, results-grid options, SQL projects, Always Encrypted Assessment, and the modern connection dialog. We'll also note the first Copilot in 21 (the Azure one) and why it was clunky, then move on.

Then SSMS 22, the retune, where it gets good:

- GitHub Copilot: sign in with GitHub, then chat to write, explain, and fix T-SQL, plus editor completions and Agent Mode (preview), where you hand it a goal and it works the problem with your approval
- Schema Compare (preview) and built-in T-SQL formatting (preview)
- The connection dialog now defaults to Strict encryption (TDS 8.0)
- Windows Arm64, grid zoom (Ctrl and mouse wheel), status-bar aggregates, JSON tooling, and deeper Fabric integration

It's all live demos and real result grids, and I'll call out the gotchas so you know what to expect. You'll leave knowing what changed, what to install, and what to turn on Monday morning.

Bring your questions. We'll have time.

Jax Data meets every 3rd Wednesday, 6 to 8pm. Doors and networking first, session after. See you there.