Just another quick post to help anyone dealing with a rather annoying bug found in the 2008 SSMS. Turns out that there is a permissions/join bug in the 2008 SSMS when users who have lesser privileges attempt to view objects with the SSMS object explorer. If you ever find a user coming to you and declaring, “I used to be able to see all the tables in database XYZ, but after we upgraded to the 2008 tools, I can’t anymore. I dont’ have the problem with the 2008 SQL Servers. Just the old 2005 SQL Server. What gives?”…..check out this link:
Non-DBO Schemas have been the be root cause for all of my affected users so far. Seems they all want to see the metadata on stuff I’m trying to hide from them Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.
The only legitimate fix, to date, is to grant the user VIEW DEFINITION permissions at the database level (I’ve tried granting the permission on individual schemas and objects to no avail Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.
). If it be a developer using 2008 SSMS on a 2005 database server, maybe VIEW ANY DEFINITION is the solution (they should probably have sufficient privileges already on a Dev server). If it be an end user on production machine, however, VIEW DEFINITION on the particular database is more appropriate. Either way, a role with these permissions would be the best practice and easiest to manage.
-Patrick
