Customizing Display Columns in SQL Server Management Studio Table Designer

There are already many articles on this topic online, but to prevent these sites from disappearing in the future, I am writing this note as a record.

In SSMS, the default columns displayed in the table designer are limited to "Column Name", "Data Type", and "Allow Nulls":

In reality, the commonly used columns are not limited to these. Unfortunately, as of SSMS 20.2 and earlier versions, there is no UI provided to edit the display columns; you must customize them by modifying the Registry.

How to Customize Display Columns

1. Run "regedit.exe" to open the Registry Editor.
2. Navigate to the following path (20.0_IsoShell corresponds to the location for SSMS 20; older versions may use {version}_IsoShell or {version}): \HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\SQL Server Management Studio\20.0_IsoShell\DataProject.

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\SQL Server Management Studio\20.0_IsoShell\DataProject

3. Modify the setting for SSVPropViewColumnsSQL80. The default value is 1,2,6. The settings are as follows:

Value	Display Column	Description
1	Column Name	Column Name
2	Data Type	Data Type
3	Length	Length
4	Precision	Precision
5	Scale	Scale
6	Allow Nulls	Allow Nulls, displayed as a checkbox
7	Default Value	Default Value
8	Identity	Identity
9	Identity Seed	Identity Seed
10	Identity Increment	Identity Increment
11	Row GUID	RowGuid, sets whether the column is the RowGuidCol for the table
12	Nullable	Nullable, displayed as a "Yes/No" dropdown
13	Condensed Type	Condensed Data Type
14	Not for Replication	Not for Replication
15	Formula	Formula
16	Collation	Collation
17	Description	Description

Based on my usage habits, I choose the following columns:

• 1: Column Name
• 2: Data Type
• 6: Allow Nulls
• 7: Default Value
• 8: Identity
• 17: Description

The reasons are as follows:

• Column 2 (Data Type) automatically displays 3 (Length), 4 (Precision), and 5 (Scale) for the corresponding types.
• In most cases, after setting column 8 (Identity), 9 (Identity Seed) and 10 (Identity Increment) are both 1.
• Most other columns are not commonly used.

The configuration result is as follows:

The display result after modification is as follows:

In addition to SSVPropViewColumnsSQL80, there is also SSVPropViewColumnsSQL70, which is primarily for compatibility with SQL Server 7.0 versions and generally does not need to be modified.

WARNING

When setting the registry key, ensure that SSMS is not running; otherwise, the changes will not take effect. If you click to edit again and find the values are the old ones, the registry key will be reverted after a reboot.

References

• SQL Server Management Studio Table Designer Display Column Description.

Change Log

• 2024-07-15 Initial document creation.