MS SQL Server Management Studio 2014, with older (2012) version of SQL server

Question

I am using locally the MS SQL Server Management Studio 2012 with SQL server 2012 database engine.

I have the following question:

Can I upgrade ONLY the SQL Server Management Studio 2012 (TOOLS) to 2014 version, and leave my old 2012 already installed database engine version?

Answer 1

Yes, you can.

But install SSMS 2014 as standalone (instead of trying to upgrade tools).

From SSMS 2014 SP1 release notes you can see that it vitally supported SQL Server 2012. See how many compatibility fixes for 2012 were delivered.

Generally I'd recommend to prefer latest release of SSMS 2016 which

works with all supported versions of SQL Server (SQL Server 2008 - SQL Server 2016)

(Besides that I tried to find similar statement for SSMS 2014 (there was one), but I couldn't.)

I'm using SSMS 2008 + SSMS 2016 side by side and they are running just fine. In similar way, I was using SSMS 2008 + SSMS 2014 before the upgrade.

Answer 2

You can download and install SQL Server Management Studio using the links provided in: Scott Hanselman's website

There are links to various SSMS versions (2012, 2014, for x86, x64), as well as links to various SQL-Server Express versions.

By the way, you can use the latest SSMS 2014 to manage your 2012 database.

Answer 3

SSMS is now a separate free product that works with all versions from 2008 and up. The current version is 16.5.3

For older versions:

There is no explicit block for SQL Server 2000 or SQL Server 2005, but some features may not work properly.

You'll have to download the RC version if you want to connect to SQL Server vNext, eg to SQL Server on Linux

Answer 4

You could simply install new SSMS 2014 version and leave the 2012 version installed ONLY IF they are all 32-bit or 64-bit. You cannot upgrade 32-bit 2012 to 64-bit 2014 and vice versa. Ideally you could use 2014 version SSMS to access databases created in 2012 before because of the compatible level allows you to do that, but it will raise another problem for restoring the databases since you cannot restore any backup files that backed up from old(2012) to (2014) because of the database version did not match.