How to get rid of old servers in SSMS ?

Question

How to get rid of old servers in SSMS ?

SQL Guy 1

SSCoach

Points: 15979
More actions
October 20, 2010 at 9:26 am

#230106

When I start SSMS, it displays a list of servers in Connect to Server dialog box. But it displays a lot of old servers which we are not using any more. At the same time there is no room there for new, recently typed server names.
How can I get rid from old ones ?
Thanks

Viewing 4 posts - 1 through 3 (of 3 total)

You must be logged in to reply to this topic. Login to reply

Lowell SSC Guru Points: 323518 More actions · Answer 1

that threw me off too, as i expected it to be in a registry setting, but it's actually in a binary file.

it's an all or nothing thing, as far as i know...you can wipe the history, but not selectively remove old servers, i think.

look for this file:

%SystemDrive%\Documents and Settings\<user>\Application Data\Microsoft\Microsoft SQL Server\90\Tools\

(For SQL Server 2008 should be 100 instead of 90)

For SQL 2005, delete the file:

C:\Documents and Settings\(UserLogin)\Application Data\Microsoft\Microsoft SQL Server\90\Tools\Shell\mru.dat

For SQL 2008, they changed the name of the file:

C:\Documents and Settings\(UserLogin)\Application Data\Microsoft\Microsoft SQL Server\100\Tools\Shell\SqlStudio.bin

Lowell

--help us help you! If you post a question, make sure you include a CREATE TABLE... statement and INSERT INTO... statement into that table to give the volunteers here representative data. with your description of the problem, we can provide a tested, verifiable solution to your question! asking the question the right way gets you a tested answer the fastest way possible!

SQL Guy 1 SSCoach Points: 15979 More actions · Answer 2

Thanks, Lowell, but I found slightly different file names.

2005: ....Application Data\Microsoft\Microsoft SQL Server\90\Tools\Shell\1033\SqlWb.CTM

2008: ....Application Data\Microsoft\Microsoft SQL Server\100\Tools\Shell\1033\ssms.CTM

But modified timestamps for them look too old: 2005 is for March, and 2008 is for July this year.

But anyway, what should be better, to delete these files or empty them and save ?

Lowell SSC Guru Points: 323518 More actions · Answer 3

I opened my SQLStudio.bin file with a text editor, and it's a mix of readable strings and binary stuff;

when i looked into this before, every recommendation was to simply delete the file, since it gets rebuilt dynamically; if it was an empty file, it might not work correctly, so i'd delete them.

Lowell

--help us help you! If you post a question, make sure you include a CREATE TABLE... statement and INSERT INTO... statement into that table to give the volunteers here representative data. with your description of the problem, we can provide a tested, verifiable solution to your question! asking the question the right way gets you a tested answer the fastest way possible!