Vinod Kumar M is my very good friend renowned SQL Server Expert. Vinod Kumar has worked with SQL Server extensively since joining the industry over a decade ago. Before joining Microsoft, he was a Microsoft MVP for SQL Server for more than 3 years. He now works with MTC as a Technology Architect. He is a well-known speaker at all major Microsoft and third party technical conferences. Here is a very interesting blog post he sent on the subject of SSMS Command Line Parameters. Don’t forget to visit Vinod’s blog for additional SSMS Tips and follow him on twitter. 

Using SQL Server Management Studio is something we do instantly after connecting to our mailing system everyday if we are a SQL Developer or SQL Administrator. Though this is a very common step, there can be optimizations we can make even in this mundane yet simple task. Let us look at the steps we take normally.

1. We find the “SQL Server Management Studio” icon from the start menu and will click on it.
   1. We can also type “ssms” in the run prompt to quickly launch. This is my favorite and I use almost daily.
   2. After Management Studio launches we need to give the Authentication mode. Let us assume we use Windows Authentication and we press “Enter” to login.
   3. This initializes the Object Explorer with the Login.
   4. Right click on Database or Server node to open a query window.

As we can see that even though this is a common activity has taken close to 4-5 clicks. How about making this efficient? If you didn’t know we have some hidden command line parameters available with SQL Server Management Studio. To know the parameters, from the run prompt just for this command.

C:\> ssms /?

This brings the list of parameters we can use. The figure below shows the same.

To tabulate the various options:

Having known all the parameters, here is the tip we would like to give you. Fire Management Studio using the authentication in one shot using the following command.

C:\> ssms -E

In this case we have used the Windows Authentication to login. We can replace the same with –U and –P parameters for SQL Authentication. Feel free to use the –d option to connect to a specific database.

Another tip, if you want to change the default behavior of the shortcut, then right click the shortcut and select properties. Add the –E or other appropriate options to your desire.

After adding the option. Click the “Ok” button. Now when we fire the Management Studio icon, this will open the management studio with an active Query window ready to do the work.

We would love to hear how many of you have played around with these parameters in the past? Have you enabled these in your Laptop’s or machines you work daily? Do drop us a comment about the same. I did talk about few SSMS Tips earlier over my blog and thought will be worth mentioning here.

Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.sqlauthority.com)