I have literally installed on my development machine three different versions of SSMS standalone: 2008, 2012, 2014, and I work with SQL Server 2008 databases. On every single one of those versions, I tried to have IntelliSense display my available columns when I type a table alias and a dot "Table." for example. But that doesn't show up over 90% of the time. This happens similarly on any SSMS version I try.
I've searched for other people having this issue and found various cases, but none of those provided solutions, such as refreshing the IntelliSense cache and disabling/re-enabling IntelliSense itself, de-selecting e re-selecting certain options, work for me.
Could this be a problem related to the instances of SQL Server that I am connecting to, rather than with SSMS itself?
Edit: I have also tried to install a third party addon to SSMS, it then starts displaying as expected, but cripples my performance (making typing somewhat slower as it loads things in the background, which I really don't like), so I would rather fix the original functionality instead of resorting to that.
Thanks
Best Answer
SSMS 2016 is available for free. It has much better IntelliSense than in previous versions. https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/mt238290.aspx I highly recommend upgrading.
Other reasons why you may be having problems, from personal experience: