SQL Server Management Studio 22 released

Microsoft has released SQL Server Management Studio 22, and one of the notable changes include the new installer. Others are the Visual Studio 2026 UI, AI support, new Options window, and of course, new and improved features. Today, I wanted to talk about the new installer.

SSMS 22 now uses the same installer infrastructure as Visual Studio 2026. If you've installed recent Visual Studio builds, this will look immediately familiar.

This new unified installer simplifies setup and updates, especially on machines where Visual Studio is already present. Installation options, workloads, and update behavior follow the same model, and its the same installer for both: Visual Studio and SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS).

If you manage multiple development or admin environments, this should make keeping SSMS up to date a bit more enjoyable.