This post was inspired by Quick poll : what is your favorite Management Studio tip or trick? by Aaron Bertrand on SQLblog.com.
My favorite SMSS (2005 for me) tricks include:
- CTRL-Tab for switching between windows.
- CTRL-R for showing and hiding the results pane.
- Include column headers when copying or saving the results options under Tools | Options | Query Results | SQL Server | Results to Grid.
- Highlight any table or view name in T-SQL and hit Alt+F1 for sp_help and a list of its fields. (Suggested by dan from the above mentioned post.)
More tips here: DAT315 – Session Review for SSMS Tips & Tricks Session by Bill Ramos.






Here are some more issued we encountered when moving up to a 64-Bit SQL Server 2005.
If you've just switched to the 64-bit version of SQL Server and have SSIS packages that access Excel or Access, you may find that you packages stop working. That's because the JET driver that is used to access Excel and Access is 32-bit only. SSIS normally uses the 64-bit DTExec to run SSIS packages, it has not access to the 32-bit drivers. Here are some articles with all the details and work arounds
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