SQL Server Management Studio takes a long time to load, how to improve the load performance of this tool?

In general the SQL Server Management Studio takes at least 10 to 15 seconds to load on a user machine. Sometimes the SSMS tool can take a long time to load when there are a lot of SQL Server instances, this problem may also occur on the new 64-bit SQL Server 2005 platform.

One resolution is to add a switch to the Management Studio shortcut as defined below. Access the below screen by going to Start > Programs > SQL Server 2005 program group > 'SQL Server Management Studio' program, right-clicking will get you the following screen by opening the General tab, then select shortcut tab to add 'nosplash' switch:

Also the user needs to tweak the Internet Explorer security settings as follows:

• Uncheck  two options in Internet Explorer's Advanced Security settings.  Namely:

"Check for publisher's certificate revocation"

"Check for server certificate revocation".

 Both these steps combined should improve the load time of SQL Server Management Studio.

When launching SQL Server Management Studio, by default it opens Object Explorer. If you need to run queries, select New Query | New SQL Server Query from the toolbar menu.

If you are used to SQL Server Query Analyzer, and would like to see the query window at SSMS startup, navigate to Tools | Options | Environment | General and change "At startup" setting to "Open new query window" in SQL Server Management Studio. To speed up the startup, select "Open empty environment" option.