Friday, October 30, 2015

SSMS Utility Explorer

One of the features of SSMS 2008R2 is the Utility Explorer window, which "connects to Database Engine instances to provide a tree view of all the objects in the SQL Server Utility." (https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ee210556%28v=sql.105%29.aspx)

This feature is available in the Enterprise & Developer Editions.

Out of curiosity, I opened that window to check it out, and then closed the window. Thought that would turn off the feature. However, every time I opened SSMS, the UE window opened too. Easy enough to close it with a single click, but could not turn it off.

I found that there is a config file windows.prf located here:
C:\Users\first_name.last_name\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Microsoft SQL Server\100\Tools\Shell

(whew!)

... and luckily there was a backup file in there, so all I had to do is close SSMS, rename the windows.prf to something else, and then rename the backup to windows.prf and Voila! the Utility Explorer window does not open when you launch SSMS.

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