SQL Server Management Studio -- where is Tools/Import and Export settings menu?

Question

In Visual Studio, there is an Import and Export settings wizard which you can use to customize Visual Studio and save settings to a .settings file.

Do we have something like it in SQL Server Management Studio?

I'm constantly switching between several VM's and configuring each SSMS is a pain in the neck. I want to be able to save my settings to a file, then import it in all my VM's.

Thank you.

Solution 1

Looks like MS has (essentially) acknowledged that, if this did exist, it's gone and there are no firm plans to bring it back...

From Microsoft Connect

Hi Doug, Thank you for your suggestion to import/export settings for the R2 release. We will not be considering this for R2. We have this request already on file and we'll look at it for a future release beyond R2 to address this request.

Unfortunate.

Solution 2

Tools/Import and Export settings menu option disappeared from my menubar too (both for 2005 and 2008 SSMS versions), but I had and used it on my previous machine.

For now I copy my archived settings to destination like c:\Documents and Settings\gg\Moje dokumenty\SQL Server Management Studio Express\Settings\CurrentSettings-2008-09-30.vssettings.

And it works.

Solution 3

The Studio keeps it's settings in the registry *HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Microsoft SQL Server[version of SQL Server]\Tools\Shell*. For your scenario you could export appropriate settings on one computer and deploy the reg file to any other.

Hope it helps!

Solution 4

Old question, but if someone still looking for, I checked SQL 2012, Tools > Import and Export settings wizard has re-appeared. Also present in SQL 2014 and 2016.

View more solutions

Comments

[Joe Harris]

This is the only reliable way to achieve this in recent versions of SSMS.

[Jayden]

Thanks! I had a situation where our network team changed the locations of our 'home' folders, and this didn't flow through int SSMS - which meant I kept getting a dialog each time I opened SSMS, saying it couldn't find my settings file (in the old location) and to use tools / import and export to change the location ... i managed to manually change the registry settings here to fix the problem! Cheers

[Alan Waage]

Yeah, had my 'My Documents' path change and had to edit 40 some odd keys in the registry to clear an error I started getting about the 'import/export' location not existing.

[wastubbs]

At one point I thought it would be wise to mirror my User Directory into the Dropbox folder that was also in the User Directory. After that mess was cleared up,VS, SSMS and Outlook all saw fit to re-create the Dropbox folder over & over again on startup. Thanks to the above registry edit, I fixed all the paths in one go.

[tukan]

We had to change from network drive to google drive. All the settings were on the network drive and this was the only way to change the network drive to google one. It was really slowing down the sql management studio at start!

[Lsakurifaisu]

This should now be the answer

[Lsakurifaisu]

@HappyTown answer is more up to date and now more relevant