Object Explorer Details (How To customize)

So I’m loving the ability to configure what information I want to see in my object explorer details window (SQL Server 2008). In SSMS if you don’t have your object explorer details window up hit F7. Now click on the Databases folder.

So by default (at least on my installation) you’ll see

DatabaseName
PolicyHealthState
RecoveryModel
CompatibilityMode
Collation
Owner

Definitely alot more useful information than what was provided in SSMS 2005 but wait… right click on the column bar and you now see a huge list of options of things you’d like to see in your object explorer details window. Some environments don’t use different collations so that might be taking up valuable real estate on your window so you can deselect it to remove it and add some other columns that you might find useful (Size MB? Last Backup date? Mirroring Status?)

The same ability to customize your object explorer details is available for the subfolders as well (Tables, Views, Stored Procedures, etc)

Anyways this is just another small but nice improvement in SQL Server 2008. Happy Monday!!

Enjoy