Scripting SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS) Installation

Very short post today. I found myself deploying SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS) to a number of systems and quickly got over clickety-clacking my way through it, so here is a PowerShell one liner to do just that. It always installs the latest version, and even cleans up after itself.

"$ENV:Temp\SSMS-Install.exe" | % {Start-BitsTransfer https://aka.ms/ssmsfullsetup $_; Start-Process $_ -ArgumentList "/Install /Quiet /Norestart" -Wait; Remove-Item $_}

PowerShell will need to be run as administrator, otherwise a UAC prompt will ruin your day when the installer starts.

By default, installation logs will be saved to C:\Users\%USERNAME%\AppData\Local\Temp\SsmsSetup, these are left in place in case something goes awry, because we all read logs before Googling, right? You can modify this location by adding a /Logs $Path argument.