Can I use SQL Server Management Studio 2005 for 2008 DB?

Question

I am looking to manage a SQL Server 2008 DB using Management Studio 2005. The reason for this is because our server is a 64-bit machine and we only have the 64-bit version of the software.

Is this possible?

How about managing a SQL Server 2005 DB using Management Studio 2008?

Answer 1

I'm posting this to prevent people getting false hope (as I did). Where as you may be able to use SQL Server 2005 Management Studio to connect to SQL Server 2008, you cannot use SQL Server 2005 Management Studio Express. You get an explicit error message stating:

This version of Microsoft SQL Server Management Studio Express can only be used to connect to SQL Server 2000 and SQL Server 2005 servers. (Microsoft.SqlServer.Express.ConnectionDlg)

Hopefully that will prevent a couple of people from wasting their time trying just-in-case.

Answer 2

unless I'm mistaken and things have changed, you cannot use sql server 2008 to save a backup which restores to sql server 2005. I found this out the hard way :(

Answer 3

The other question you asked was about managing 2005 servers with SSMS 2008 - and yes, you can do that. SSMS 2008 can manage 2008, 2005, 2000. I actually recommend that everybody use the latest SSMS 2008 client regardless of what server they're connecting to, because it has some nice perks and upgrades that work with all server versions that you connect to.

Be aware that SSMS 2008 has IntelliSense, but only when you connect to a SQL 2008 server. If you connect to a 2005 server, you don't get IntelliSense.

Answer 4

UPDATE: You can use Cumulative update package 5 for SQL Server 2005 Service Pack 2 to connect to 2008.

FIX: 50002151 946127 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/946127/) FIX: You may experience problems when you use SQL Server Management Studio in SQL Server 2005 to connect to an instance of SQL Server 2008