Adding servers

Add a server from the Estate tab's Add menu, or amend an existing one from its right-click menu. The dialog has two tabs: Connection properties, where you set the server up, and a read-only Connection string preview with a Copy to clipboard button.

Connection properties

Database type offers SQL Server, Oracle, PostgreSQL or MySQL, and defaults to SQL Server. Studio's other modules are SQL Server focused.

Server name / address is a single field, in the form host\instance,port. There are no separate boxes for instance or port.

Authentication offers eight options: Windows Authentication, SQL Server Authentication, Microsoft Entra MFA, Microsoft Entra Password, Microsoft Entra Integrated, Microsoft Entra Default, Microsoft Entra Service Principal, and Microsoft Entra Managed Identity.

Two checkboxes, Store username and Store password, decide what Studio remembers. If you leave a value unstored, Studio asks for it once per session and keeps it in memory only; it is never written to the profile.

Default database sets the database the connection opens against.

Encrypt offers Optional, Required or Strict. Trust server certificate is forced off when Encrypt is set to Strict. Host name in certificate appears once encryption is above Optional and Trust server certificate is off. Always Encrypted, with an enclave attestation URL, is available for SQL Server connections only.

Name is the friendly name shown in the estate tree. It follows the address automatically until you edit it yourself. Colour lets you pick none, a colour already used by another server, or a custom colour.

Tags shows a checkbox tree of the profile's tags, with a Configure tags button alongside it. A server can carry several tags. See Tag management.

Test connection checks the details in the background. For localhost, it retries over each network protocol in turn.

Advanced settings

The Advanced dialog adds settings most connections do not need to touch: connection timeout (1 to 3600 seconds), network protocol (Shared Memory, TCP/IP or Named Pipes), packet size (512 to 32767), Multiple Active Result Sets, multi-subnet failover, application intent (ReadWrite or ReadOnly), connect retry count (0 to 255) and interval (1 to 60 seconds), free-text notes, and an override connection string that is validated when you save. The SQL Server-only controls hide when Database type is set to Oracle, PostgreSQL or MySQL.

A Custom fields button opens the profile's custom fields for this server. There are up to 10 fields, defined once for the whole profile; every value is free text.

Credentials

Stored credentials live inside the encrypted profile file. If a profile is still on its default password, Studio warns wherever a password field appears, so it's worth changing before you rely on stored credentials.