SQL Server 2008 Management Studio Express – Released to the Web

I just wanted to let the community know that we have just released a new Express edition called SQL Server 2008 Management Studio Express to the web today!

We teased out the Tools portion of SQL Server 2008 Express with Tools into it’s own download. It’s free and has most of the tools you would expect available in SQL Server Management Studio (SSMSE).

Check it out!

Update 3/6/2009

The installation of SSMSE uses the same installer used for the full SQL Server 2008 product. To kick things off, you will want to:

1. Follow the prerequisite downloads noted on the Download page for for Microsoft .Net Framework 3.5 SP1, Windows Installer 4.5, and Windows PowerShell 1.0
2. Go to the Installation page in the SQL Server Installation Center. Then, click on the top link for “New SQL Server stand-alone installation or add features to an existing installation”.
3. Click OK for the Setup Support Rules dialog.
4. Choose to Install for the Setup Support Files.
5. If you did step 1 ok, you will go into the full setup wizard where you will check Next for the “Setup Support Rules” step.
6. For the Installation Type page, if you happen to have an instance of the SQL Server 2008 engine installed, don’t select to add features to it. Instead, select “Perform a new installation of SQL Server 2008” and click next.
7. Click next for the Product Key page.
8. Read the license terms, check that you accept the terms and then Next.
9. For the Feature Selection page – click ON the check box for “Management Tools – Basic” and click Next.
10. Click Next for the Disk Space Requirements if all checks out.
11. Click Next for Error and Usage Reporting.
12. If all goes well – click Next for Installation Rules.
13. Then, click Install for the Ready to Install page.
14. Complete the wizard and life is good.

If you don’t want to use the UI, you can do a command line install for the package.  For example:

SQLManagementStudio_x86_ENU.exe /q /FEATURES= SSMS /ACTION=Install

If you want to see progress, you can replace the /q option with /qs.

If you want to see if SSMS or SSMS Express is already installed, you can look for the Registry hive under HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Microsoft SQL Server\100\Tools\Setup\SQL_SSMS_Adv. Look at the FeatureList key and it will contain a string “SQL_SSMS_Adv=3”. The key could include additional information as well, so do a “contains” search of the key value.