Virtual Folders for SSMS

SQL Server Management Studio 22

The add-in now loads and runs on SSMS 22. The assembly references were rebuilt against the SSMS 22 components, and the threading issues that crashed earlier builds under SSMS 22 are resolved. Assemblies that SSMS ships itself are no longer duplicated in the add-in folder.

New Options page

SSMS 22 replaced the classic options dialog with Unified Settings, which has no extension point for add-ins yet. Virtual Folders therefore ships its own settings screen under Tools → Options → SQL Server Object Explorer → Virtual Folders, with grouped sections instead of a raw property grid.

Folder storage: your own database or the hosted service

Until now, folders were stored in a database you pointed the add-in at with a connection string, and a mistyped string meant folders silently disappeared after a restart. There are now two choices:

• Own database. As before. A Connect… button opens the normal SSMS Connect to Server dialog, so the connection string no longer has to be typed by hand.
• Hosted service. Folders are stored under your license key by SQLTreeo. New installs default to this; existing installs keep their database.

A Connect button under the hosted option tests the service and transfers the folders loaded in this session to it. The transfer merges with what is already stored under the license, so folders created on another computer are kept.

When you switch between the two, or point own database at another server, the folders loaded in the current session are saved to the new target first and then reloaded from it. Nothing is left behind on the old target.

License key

A Verify button next to the license key validates the key that is currently typed, before you press OK. The Licensed to and License status lines update with the result. Validation now follows the current license service response, so keys that were reported as invalid by mistake are accepted again, and expired keys are reported as expired.

Fixes

• Schema fallback grouping never grouped anything and Alphabetical grouping never ran. Both work now. Fallback folders such as dbo are created on first use and removed when they become empty; they do not appear in the Edit/Delete Folder menu.
• Alphabetical grouping uses the object’s own name, so dbo.Test is filed under T, not D.
• The options dump written to the SSMS activity log at start-up no longer contains the storage connection string’s password.
• The Options page layout was tidied: controls, result lines and the Verify button are aligned with their captions.

Fixes

• Cannot open database … VFP02x. When SSMS shows a database with a suffix such as (Synchronized) or (Read-Only), the add-in used that display name to open its own connection to the database, which failed. The add-in now uses the internal database name. See Error: Cannot open database…VFP02x.

Changes

• Objects can be dragged from one virtual folder to another in the Object Explorer. Dropping an object that is already in the target folder is detected and ignored.
• The SSMS 20 build shares its code base with the 21.x line, so the asynchronous loading and the stability fixes from that release are included.
• Internal clean-up: hard-coded strings were replaced by constants, error codes were centralised, and folder lookups are built with parameterised queries.

SQL Server Management Studio 21

Virtual Folders is available for SSMS 21, which is built on the Visual Studio 2022 shell. The package was moved to the asynchronous package model and the Object Explorer integration was reworked for the new shell. The dependencies that SSMS 21 already provides are no longer bundled with the add-in.

Installation

The add-in is delivered as a zip file that is extracted into the SSMS 21 Extensions folder. Unblock the zip before extracting it, or Windows keeps the files blocked and the add-in does not load. See Install Virtual Folders on SSMS v21.

Fixes

• Folder loading and saving is fully asynchronous; SSMS no longer waits on the storage database while the Object Explorer is being built.
• Several stability fixes in the Object Explorer extender found during the SSMS 21 port.