» Management Studio

Select or Edit Top x Rows

Colin Stasiuk — Wed, 27 Oct 2010 16:29:18 +0000

So a little SQL Server Management Studio tip/trick for today (inspired by a user question… Thanks Brandon!!)

When you right click on a table you’re given the options to Select Top 1000 rows or Edit Top 200 rows as shown below:

If you choose to SELECT, SQL Server Management Studio will build your SELECT statement for you and execute it (which is nice cause it populates all your coumn names in your query).

If you choose to EDIT, SQL Server Management Studio will populate a datasheet for you and allow you to make changes there (if your permissions allow you to do so).

But what if I wanted to SELECT the top 2000 or 5000 rows? What if I wanted to UPDATE the top 1000 rows?

These values (TOP X) are configurable in SQL Server Management Studio but it is a bit “hidden” in the options menu:

Nothing really “ground-breaking” but hopefully it’ll make someones Management Studio experience that much better.

Enjoy and follow me on Twitter: @ColinStasiuk

CMS Multiserver Query Result Default Settings

Colin Stasiuk — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 16:26:21 +0000

Steve Jones commented on a blog post I did on Checking the SQL Server Agent Status on all SQL Servers and pointed out that my query didn’t return the Server Name with the resultset. My first reaction/thought was “hmmm did my code not cut/paste correctly?” then it dawned on me that my default settings might not be the same default settings that everyone else uses.

I have in my Multiserver results options that the query returns the server name to the result set. If this is a setting you’re not familar with follow me on this to find where to change these options if desired. In (SQL Server 2008) Management Studio click on Tools then Options.

In the options window Expand Query Results, then SQL Server, then select MultiServer Results… your window should look something like this now:

Real easy to find eh? LOL

Let’s discuss the 3 options in here:

Add Login name to the results: This will add a column to the result set with the login name of the account that executed the CMS query
Add ServerName to the results: This will add a column to the result set indicating the instance name that the query was ran against
Merge Results: Setting this value to true will take all the results from your CMS query and consolidate the data into one result set as opposed to a separate resultset per instance

So play around with these settings and see what works best for you

Enjoy!!

Sound Notification When Query Finishes Executing

Colin Stasiuk — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 16:28:27 +0000

So on twitter this morning a question was asked about attaching a sound file to SQL Server Management Studio to play a sound when a query completes.

So I decided to poke around the managment studio a bit and under Tools -> Options if you select Query Results there is a checkbox for playing the default beep when a query batch completes.

Who knew? I didn’t LOL

Granted this doesn’t give you the option to attach your own sound… but I imagine there are some smart folks out there that would be able to “hack-fu” something if needed hehehe

Enjoy!!