SSMS 2008 and CTRL-N (Control – N)

Like most developers I learn my doing or, in the case of my work laptop, by installing and using lots and lots of Software. The result: performance issues. Terrible, terrible performance issues. Over the last few weeks everything from opening Outlook to building a project in VS 2008 have grinded to a halt. This weekend I performed the first rebuild in 18 months….

The problem:

My setups is the same as before, same OS, same Visual Studio versions, same SQL installation…I had heard rumors that some of my shortcut keys might break, depending on how I installed SQL, and only this morning did I notice that two of the keystroke combinations that I use most often in SQL Server Management Studio 2008 – CTRL-N (New Query), CTRL-SHIFT-M (Specify Values for Template Parameters) were missing!!!

If this isn’t a bug, I implore you to tell me what it is:

The (ugly) Fix:

Playing around a little I found the keyboard settings under Environment in Tools->Options. The options were simple – standard (the default…) or SQL 2000. There are some newer shortcuts in 2005/2008 that I didn’t want to lose – but none that had as great an impact as the aforementioned CTRL-N and CTRL-SHIFT-M. I switched to SQL 2000 and lo-and-behold the commands worked again.

Switching back and forth between the two schemes in order to determine what I was gaining and losing I noticed something interesting: when I returned to standard the CTRL-N and CTRL-SHIFT-M combinations stayed in tact, along with my SQL 2008 commands!!! The best of both worlds I guess….

Comments

Muhammad Haroon said…
I have a one-word suggesstion for you: virtualization.

Between a combination of Virtual PC, Virtual Server 2005, and VMWare Server I have use on several machines for different purposes, coupled with XP and Vista's functionality to rollback in time, I have not had to "rebuild" my critical machines in several years since I started using virtualization.
March 13, 2009 at 1:13 PM
Jason said…
I have a two-word response: crappy laptop :o)

Normally I would agree with you 100% - virtualization is the way to go. I am pretty well versed in most of the mainstream virtualization technologies and the organization I work for is in the middle of a pretty large virtualization project. However, given my current (out-dated) work laptop, it is not an option in this case. I'm hoping to get an upgrade sometime soon but for now a rebuild was the only option. I'm not sure if you've seen, but i am really excited about the ability to boot from a VHD in Windows 7! That could be the best of both worlds in my situation!

Thanks for the advice though!
March 14, 2009 at 2:17 AM
Howard Pinsley said…
Thank you for the Ctrl-N fix! It has been driving me crazy!
March 26, 2009 at 12:20 PM
Unknown said…
Thanks, CTRL+N was driving me nuts. This worked perfectly.
March 27, 2009 at 12:33 PM
theo said…
Instead of switching back and forth between Standard and Server 200, put it on standard and click the "Reset to Default" button in the lower right hand corner.

Sometimes during install or upgrade of SQL Server features the hotkeys get overwritten or deleted. Usually clicking "Reset to Default" Will restore. I had the same issue described above and this solved it.
March 15, 2010 at 2:48 PM
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