Microsoft has announced that its SQL Server Management Studio is now available as a stand-alone product with the June 2015 Preview release. This frees the useful tool from its normal bundling with the SQL Engine releases. This independence should allow Microsoft to give it more development and more frequent updates to keep in step with SQL Server and Azure SQL Database. The change comes with the release of the SQL Server 2016 Community Technology Preview 2.1.
Microsoft listed the following new features in this new release:
New lightweight Web Installer – allows only the changed components to be downloaded and updated while not downloading components already installed.
Automatic checks for updates – Check automatically with toast notifications for updates or manually check for updates with Tools, Check for Updates…
Top customer requests addressed – ‘Edit Top 200 Rows’ enabled, Table Designer for Azure SQL Database V12, Database and Table property dialogs for Azure SQL Database V12
New ability to skip prompt to save T-SQL files – Under Options, Query Execution, SQL Server, you can check to hide this prompt on close.
Updated Import/Export wizards with support for the new Azure SQL Database service tiers (Basic, Standard, Premium)
Bug fixes to support Azure SQL Database
You can download the June 2015 preview of the Microsoft SQL Server Management Studio from MSDN at https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/mt238290.aspx