I was very happy with Intellisense in SQL Management Studio 2008, it worked great. So I was very surprised to have so many issues with it when I installed the 2012 version. First of all, it seems to take forever for it to load/cache database objects that used to be available almost instantly. With the 2012 version I can open a new query window and start typing and I don’t expect any help right away. Sometimes it takes minutes before I get any help. And my databases are not very large or complicated. But that’s not even the worst of it.
Let’s take a *very* simple example. Assuming you have a table in your currently selected database, try typing the following in both 2008 and 2012 versions:
SELECT * FROM MyTable Where MyTable.
When I typed this in SSMS 2008, a drop down list of my column names appeared instantly.
When I typed this in SSMS 2012, nothing happened. So I pressed Ctrl-J to try and get it to work. Instead, what I typed last (MyTable.) got a red underline, indicating a syntax error was discovered by Intellisense. So I hovered my mouse over it, and it said:
“An expression of non-boolean type specified in a context where a condition is expected.”
Not very helpful. Not sure why Intellisense no longer understands that since the last thing I typed was a “.” and I’m asking for some help, that perhaps I want a list of columns and not the current compilation state of my incomplete statement.
I have SSMS 2012 version 11.0.3000.0 which is at Service Pack 1. I hope they fix this soon, Meanwhile I’m going back to SSMS 2008.