Have you ever wished for a visual indicator that you are connected to a production instance of SQL Server? Well, you can change the status bar to any color that you want for any instance.

In the Connect to Server dialog, select the Options button.

Then select the “Connection Properties” tab, check the “Use Custom Color” checkbox, and click the “Select” button to select the color that you want to use. All queries using this connection will set the status bar to this color.

If you are using Registered Servers to connect to the various SQL Server instances, you will need to set this on the instance in the Registered Servers window.

This post is for day seventeen of my month-long blog series “A Month of SSMS Tips”. I have a landing page for the series at bit.ly/MonthOfSSMS. Please visit this page for an easy place to quickly view all of the other tips in this series.